LIGAMENT EXTRACT

And under that slice was a drop of blood forthwith to cry of senders and receivers wires tangled in shelves and desks squatting on the dirt rocks for throwing at the mountains sinking as you close in on them sinking under that slice was a drop of blood forthwith to cry of senders and receivers wires tangled in shelves and desks squatting on the dirt rocks for throwing at the mountains sinking as you close in on them sinking under the road that widens and narrows and widens. Do you want to hold on to what you have left? Do you want to dig your fingernails into the ceiling underneath the shoe used to hammer you into place like a nail. They don't like it when you say lost. I said it once that might be all the times I get to say it today before they burst in like kicks in the chest now now the soup the stew of air has been left out to sit too long left do you want to hold on to what you have left? Do you want to dig your fingernails into the ceiling underneath the shoe used to hammer you into place like a nail. They don't like it when you say when you say I know not you I say I say I know not you you I know not I tried to know you maybe not hard enough I would explore when I when my orbit was my orbit collapsed a sick caress here and there our yards bonded together with mucus and each other's bodily oozings.  

"I am."
"Go ahead."
"Go ahead what?"
"Go ahead and say it."
"Say what?"
"Finish what you were saying."
"I did."
"I thought it was a dot dot dot."
"It was just a dot."
"How was it just a dot?"
"I was answering your question about who is an exemplar of madness on legs."
"You started talking like you always do in the middle of a sentence and left us hanging even though I'd rather it was from a crossbeam in a garage."
"None of the houses I saw around growing up had garages."
"None of the roads I saw around growing up had houses."
"I miss all those interactions."
"With people?"
"No, with medications."
"Back up a bit."

And under that slice was a drop of blood forthwith to cry of senders and receivers wires tangled in shelves and desks squatting on the dirt rocks for throwing at the mountains sinking as you close in on them sinking under that slice was a drop of blood forthwith to cry of senders and receivers wires tangled in shelves and desks squatting on the dirt rocks for throwing at the mountains sinking as you close in on them sinking under the road that widens and narrows and widens. Do you want to hold on

"Not that far back."
"Blood?"

when I when my orbit was my orbit collapsed a sick caress here and there our yards bonded together with mucus and each other's bodily oozings.  

"There was no question."
"Maybe you were improvising?"
"The last time I tried that we didn't speak to each other for days."
"It was weeks."
"Days weeks who gives a shit? It was quiet nonetheless."
"Quiet? Even if we had tried to converse we would have been drowned out by all that noise that kept screeching back and forth under our feet made by those machines and we ended up in that foul caved-in chamber."
"It couldn't have ended there we had to be revived by an air pocket. And those were more like insects making that screeching noise."
"By rubbing their wings together like maniacal violinists?"
"Mesh speakers on their underbellies."
"How do you know that?"
"A couple of them ran me over during that time I was an afterthought to you."
"Are we going to revisit that again?"

Tense and curt responses from their organs both had small pipe organs they copied each other smashing their paws into a cluster of migraines plumes of what looked like shredded newspapers but were not with no news just a lengthy sluggish downpour of pages of score lines intertwining with saps and dupes.

"I don't know where we are now."
"We'll circle back around for him."
"Back around to that again?"
"For him."
"Not him."
"Just for a reference point so we can have a nice fresh restart."
"Nothing fresh about it being our 20th or so restart."
"Must you always round up?"
"I thought I was underestimating just to be fair. No point in being fair I guess."
"And what reference point are we supposed to use to circle back around for him who we keep referring to as our reference point for just repeating ourselves?"
"We'll know by the gathering of garbage cans that we're getting warm."
"Fancy that, getting warm in the desert."

Press them together
Touching overlapping regret
Meant for the unfinished
incompetence mingled with vomit
it is assembled into a gross cake
in the back room
for its stench to roll over
into backyard graves
at the sound of our voices

"It can't be a gathering. More random than anything else."
"He could have put them there."
"I doubt it. He never had any limbs."
"Just past the cans is the hole."
"You mean the hole in your reasoning?"
"No, the hole he was tucked into just past the cans."
"There was no hole just past the cans."
"All right, the hole was a little further on past the cans."
"Get it through your head about there being a hole."
"I could have sworn there was a hole."
"You could have sworn and rather colorful expressions you used last night rattled about in my fucking skull and prevented me from obtaining a wink."
"Fine! We're working our way up to it again the complaining and the arguing about the complaining and the arguing and the angry shouting losing our voices and the quiet that is too brief before the clamor of our shit backs up from beneath us to flood our silence run over by it as we run over it again and again and again until the truth of it is we took our anger out on him and you can deny it all you want that you didn't take part in it he has no bones let alone any skin any trace no hole to speak of."
"That suits me fine no bones no skin no trace no hole to speak of."

Tense and curt responses from their organs both had small pipe organs they copied each other smashing their paws into a cluster of migraines plumes of what looked like shredded newspapers but were not with no news just a lengthy sluggish downpour of pages of score lines intertwining with saps and dupes.


- Max Stoltenberg