“How do you feel?” I ask again. I, knowing the answer, poke my head into the lion's den. I feel the ghost of your frustrations floating about in the confined space. It haunts the room as our shadows strangle each other.

“What is the opposite of homesick?“ You ask.

“Homesick, ” I answer.

As we sat in the car and the sun declined, the world turned to a peach hue and dimmed. The pouring rain from not only an hour before still felt as if it lingered in the air, sticking to my skin. A car joined us in the parking lot and started staring to the East, we both turned our gaze to align with theirs and saw a perfect rainbow accompanied by a faded second. And as we sat there and reflected on the topic of the human perseption of light, I found a moment to ask, "Can I kiss you so we can remember this moment forever?"
They replied, "of course".

What is seen is temporary
What is unseen is eternal

I live on borrowed time
but I will gladly spend it with you

My days are numbered
but I will gladly count it with you

It was dark, it was lonely

It was quiet, it was empty

My heart cried out

But nothing, not even an echo returned an  answer

It was a quite place
The wind spread through the wild flowers
Like a wave
She closed her eyes
She laid in those wild flowers
For a long time
So long her fingers and toes sprouted roots
Grounding her.

he sits down in the lobby and the tv is playing some show, there are also stacks of magazines on the table
  after about a minute and thumbing through the stations with the remote and eating complimentary breathmints the bearded man with a green neck approaches, and he has jewelry hanging from his nose
"Are you Sebastian?"
he says calmly and nicely
"well yes I am!"
"well okay then, nice to meet you, why don't you have a seat over there"
as he points to a pristine barber shop chair with bright red lapels and that smell of lavender.
Next to the seat is a petite girl with a bettie page hair do and traditional rose tattoos on her hips
and floral designs lining her shoulder, you barely notice.
"Okay, we agreed on the yellow
  snake with bubbles to signify your dog's passing correct?"
he says to me
"yes, yes we did"
"Well okay then! Let's get started!"

He starts, and it's the gentlest ***** you've ever felt, and the Joy Division pumping through the speakers sets you at ease.
A mother with her kids and a face tattoo of a dagger strolls in; on her lunch break, she schedules an appointment to have her back scalpeled with the design of a Christmas tree so as to be ironic because she's really a satanist; but it's pagan anyway so no-one cares.

    After about 2 hours, my artist finishes and wraps me with sandwich plastic and rubs hemmoroid cream all over the yellow snake. It's beautiful.
"You sat like a champ! Here's a lolly for you"
it's a green lolly and I **** it; it really tastes good, and I go home and admire my tattoo in the mirror for hours
and talk about it to all my friends who have the same yellow snake. It really makes me feel like I belong

She came from a broken home
She moved to New York to become an editor
He fled Belfast City to make his way as a fighter
After his brother was blown up in a car bombing
It was summertime when the ocean breeze
Climbs up the hills, flows through the fields into the trees.
He could see the harbour. He could see the city lights
The tall buildings, the millions of people
He was alone, lonely, alien, afraid.
Their paths intersected by mere chance
By the ball fields on the edge of town
Their eyes met each other
As a summer storm blew in over the field
The grey clouds rumbled
And rained down on them
They ran into the trees for cover
In their scant summer clothes.
Their heads turned slowly as their eyes met for a second time
The laughter started when he said the rain ruined his haircut
They embraced
They kissed
They made love in the rain
She took him back to her place and did it all over again
He moved into her apartment on the ugly side of town
They would talk about the state of things
The pandemics, the hysteria, the great writers
The music, the people they hated, the people they loved
They were at home with each other
One day he woke up to find
She had gone
And not left a single thing behind
No note, not even a goodbye
He never fought another fight
He drove around town for days chain smoking cigars
The ones she hated the smell of but told him he looked
He looked like a movie star when he smoked them
He went to the undertaker and asked if they did walk-ins.
He drove up the mountain
Where people dumped their garbage
He looked down the cliff to see the unwanted refuse.
“That’s me.” he said.
His body was never found
The undefeated fighter met his match.
She delivered the knockout punch.

Farnham sat on the fringes of education, sweating his mind. He observed a charlatan wearing a paper hat in the corner of the centre and proclaimed,
“You will be beautiful in my dreams”
And thus felt at ease. It is a frustratingly slow day in March, as the mister’s heart began to loosen in the literal subjectivity. The sun shone with the dominion of a mad titan, yet at Farnham’s request, acquiesced to a simmer. “The class is finished. you will start again in sorrow, some time tomorrow” were the words that Farnham heard, which duly prompted him to click his heels towards the doorway with great ebullience. What is the day to him, but a measurement? A tightrope, so it seems. He lingered like an unwanted scent to his locker, having dropped all but one of his cents in his classmates’ pockets. The locker opened and greeted him with a lifeless moan. He stuffed it full of his insides and began to feel like a muted songbird.
“Where will I find my voice?”, Farnham wondered aloud, “Who will lend me the right to sing with immense volition?”
He can fly with unbridled confidence yet cannot convey its feeling in a universal medium.Such a poor state. Walking up to the most aloof passerby, “Point your finger! Point it, and I will follow in good faith and stringed navigation!” The unremarkable fellow adhered in mock comprehension, fearing for her wallet. To the northern wing she pointed, where lingering soulmates lied in the garden square of Bohemian export. Farnham, capriciously fearing impermanence, flew like a bird yoked to a noose. The tiles of ivory institution felt uneven below his head as he sunk into the cacophonous call of propriety, where his streams were superimposed onto innocent scholars. In an attempt to escape liability, he eyed a man twice his stature and importance and duly clambered upon his back, steering him by the ears.
“Fellow man, I am looking for something unattainable, but don’t peg me as a defeatist! It is akin to that of enlightenment, which I’m sure you have dreaded over for a time. I have extrapolated the knowledge we have attained so far, and have concluded that attunement is inevitable, and thus applicable to life. You will take me there, to that answer, and in return, I promise to feed you tangerines from the Proverbial Garden. I will love you for your duty and kiss your feet. Please, come with me.”
Moments passed. An answer was being formed, and Farnham waited patiently, wanting to catch it like a fisherman sailor. Then, reply.
“I should take you for a fool, were you not so soaked in this sort of significance. Let us journey, and journey well”. Farnham caressed the ears of his companion and pulled forwards.

Pianos are crashing inside my head as the yellow light of the city and the sun force me into an excruciating halt. An affectionate young man- who is now old, yet remembers the skin he shed- sighs about ****** premonitions through the medium of digital frequencies. A car edges its way to my side- my father tells me “we’re almost there”- the car is positioned in such a contrived way that should I turn my attention exactly ninety degrees rightwards, I would be obliviously vying for the driver’s attention. The thought unnerves me, so I encourage my divagated musings elsewhere. Why did my father tell me that we were nearing our destination? Did he meekly say it, with the meagre velleity of keeping me aware of my surroundings? Where else could my head go, but up?
Pedestrians, their knees adorned with snow trinkets, fall within my periphery. As our car fit itself into a fleeting crevice on the cliff face of concrete, I adjusted my vision into a volitional telescope, narrow and explorative. Among the constellation of humans lay writers in poses denoting propriety, cigarettes suggesting esotericism, and face begging for denial. Facsimiles of these characters dance between the ivory-laced walkways of the interconnected district. I am disgusted by this labile beauty. I am fearful that I will witness its extinction.
I crossed the indifferent street, sure that my haste wasn’t apparent, and therefore, non-existent.
“Disappointingly, the record store sat waiting, knowing of my excitement”, said a fool, pricking my ear. I almost ran for an officer, indignant in my role as a victim to his verbal impotence. When I regained my composition, I paid full attention to the unassuming door between a burger shack and some unidentifiable after-thought-structure. This door, pedestrian to most, contains within it what a common walker would consider heaven. It is, to me, a strenuous Sunday stroll of impulse and and opulence. There is no point in resisting that which makes me happy yet unstable. I could not do without it. To deny is to doubt the music that I loved, and am currently beholden to by chains; the lobotomical sort.
I scoured the store and bough the prized possession. It was quite probably a Tim Buckley record. Here comes a man, quick and close, with a chartreuse disposition.
“I see you thinkin’ kid, it makes my brain throw up alllll funny things. If my erradition ever had anyin’ ta say, it’d shout that you’s too rowdy a rider.” Good sir, a sharp mind and apt humour is all I need to keep myself from harm. I wrote that down, walkings as if the stiff block was nothing but. Such a misdemeanour, to be so passive. I lingered forward and onwards.