Tuesday, December 27, 2011

IS THAT RIGHT?

Answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing with its icicles dripping from the gutters hanging there to hang on left hanging as fading vapors on into the disappearing acts of what has been written for no one answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the at hand look no hands as the ride takes this nobody into the next disappearing act.

"Be right there."
"When?"
"In a little bit."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.

"When?"
"When my stomach settles."
"Settles for what?"
"When it settles down."
"What's up inside your stomach?"
"Too much that happens outside it."
"Or that doesn't happen?"

Stuffed animals in the backyard left around the small plastic picnic bench close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around no one around to interrupt conversations between little mouths and mouths that never move mouths that never have holes to fall into to get sucked into close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around to interrupt with their holes that slurp and bite small words chew them up and stitch them with needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different.

"Is that right?"
"Is what right?"
"Can I listen to your stomach?"
"You'll only hear dinner talking."
"Between the food."
"What's between the food?"
"Gas."

The wind the hot wind the cold wind in alternating intervals spread further apart by hands that never pick up the call from voices squeezed by beginnings and endings of conversations narrowed by armies of information that huddle together on the head of a pin needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different different for nothing.

"What did you say?"
"Did I say something?"
"How can you not know if you said something?  Even though you may not always give me permission I still listen to what you say."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I."

The simpler the book the thicker the words and images the harder it is to turn the pages.  thicker dull the wet light drops of mandibles with spit on mirrors for a wiping forgotten and a compelled forgiveness smeared for the heels of the palms applying the brakes cracking the forehead on the edge of the counter.  can't get a grip on anything between thicker pages.  can't get a grip.

"Can you tell me a story?"
"After I fill your water bottle."
"Can you fill my water bottle after you tell me a story?"
"After I empty out your water bottle and give you all fresh new water."
"I want to finish it myself."
"There's something floating in it."
"Is it a bug?"
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"Pick a book.  One from the lower shelf.  We haven't read one of those in a couple of weeks."
"Tell me a story."
"I will.  Pick me a book.  Lower shelf."
"No, tell me what you did.  Once.  And don't do anymore."
"The bloody nose."
"Did you tell me this before?  I think you told me this before."
"No, I haven't.  The bloody nose and I capitalize nothing."
"What does that mean?"
"Just let me continue."

Doorstep door frame framing not entrances but exits or both where coming in and going out makes for a one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground you know how it is or perhaps not even about the uneven ground that it how it is over your head or has slipped out the back for playing in alleys where large dark faces atop hard walls empty themselves more on what cuts short its play down below running off to reclaim their one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground.

"He or it might have even been me who picked at it poked at it too much and made it bleed.  It had that smell that bloody smell that's like the inside of some room with messy walls that is either falling in on you before you break open."
"Like the astronaut who had the alien worm inside him and his chest exploded and it came out growled and slid across some vegetables or it could have been lettuce."
"And you wipe your nose and get all this thick red blood all over your hand and arm."
"The neighbor across the street showed me his tumor in his arm it looked like he had an orange inside.  Made him look as if he had two elbows."
"Went into the garage and found the toolbox where there were pliers to clamp the nose shut and stop the flow of blood."
"Will this help me sleep?"
"All I could find was something metal.  That's all there is now metal things.  To stop the flow of blood.  Funny the flow of blood it makes you see funny things especially the closer you get to death and then you come back because it keeps flowing."
"I was asleep and then I woke up.  Did you say something funny?  So much about blood.  I'm falling asleep anyway.  Do you ever wish you didn't grab the pliers?"
"Bloody wishful thinking."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.


- Max Stoltenberg

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