LITTER BOX ENTRANCE

Shoulders sore blades itch decisions seep into the sheets pillows soaked with thoughts tangled into re-charger cables still interested? still interested throat clearings is about the most of it developing into nothing more than getting up to go to the can passing by the handle pull on it and see if it is still even there even there still interested? most use gotten out of it amounted to underwear that had seen its last dump dropped into the waste basket in the bathroom those plastic clips don't do what they're supposed to do that sounds like a voice singing a tune thought it had a voice in it and now it is more like a droning of the neighborhood a droning is more than a voice now less than a catastrophe and that brings it back to this issue of suicide hanging in there again would think hanging really hanging could make what actually cares about living you know rise to the occasion and then give it up and be dead but but there is has been this not doing that and hanging in there with a neck sticking itself out you know rise to the occasion someone else's thing waving it about excuse you put that back that brings it back to this issue of a droning of the neighborhood what do they have under there a dried out bag on the sidewalk they put that dropped it into the trash thought they did and it felt somewhere back there and I still can't bring myself to end it hanging in there for eyes mouths ears that listen to something else and haven't missed a thing just don't feel like it and refuse to answer just like I never did only once and that was the end of it the only end I could bring myself to got myself into under the roof with them out from under it just enough under the gutter dug them out and threw them down to me what the skies mixed with where we lived a mess of ingredients for getting into my eyes mouth that listen to someone else until my responses my attempts at reflections end up more like a drone of the neighborhood and that was the end I could bring myself to got myself into under the roof with them.

"I don't want to talk about it."
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
"What do you mean if?"
"Since I meant since."
"But you said if."
"It was an accident and don't say there aren't any."
"I wasn't going to. At least I'm not one to say if when I meant since."
"I'm sure you've mixed words up many times."
"Of course I've mixed words up. It's commonly referred to as communication."
"You know what I mean."
"Apparently not."

The bottle was empty their bottle was empty the one they had been sharing and the startling thing or not so startling thing as they somehow managed to remain a thing or became more of a thing each of them more an item scribbling that smudged on the back of a plastic card none left as they thinned them out their words to each other like planers shaving away the sides of their frames of reference both of them knew that they had both forgotten who had drank the last amount and yet both insisted that the other knew that the other was in denial and took turns blaming themselves that's how it went when the man who taught the self-defense class for women went home and put his hands around his wife's neck and saw in her eyes how his laptop crashed right in the middle of his latest first person shooter. Temptations to open close open another tab ran up his tab in the bar downstairs down the street if it had been down the street he might have turned down that alley that to the used bookstore down the steps where the old woman in the trenchcoat would piss. One would walk carefully down the steps or not remember and stare at the drain in the concrete in the corner the dark corner across from the steps and not put it together not put anything together.

"Are you still planning your suicide?"
"Planning? Planning. I'm beginning to make my approach over the idea that it might be better not to plan it and do it on a whim so that it serves two purposes."
"The only reason I'm asking is to pretend that I give a crap."
"So I take it that you don't want to know about the two purposes that it might serve?"
"It does make me wonder why something to be done to confirm the purposelessness of life would serve not only a purpose but twice as many."
"One: it is not planned so there is less chance of objection or backing out and two: it reflects the lack of planning involved that characterizes my life."
"More planning goes into avoiding having to make a plan."
"And then you take this as your cue to go on about how skepticism enters in only because it emerges in the context of what we do know about the world."
"You're talking about incredulity."
"Only when I encounter the fuckhead in the house next door. Can't even rely on my backyard. I sit there with my ass in the dirt looking through a chain-link fence. A see through wall vulnerable to other encounters and social interaction that makes my brain fall into my mouth and choke on my thoughts that's how responses get stuck you know."
"You need to let your neighbor be someone to challenge your ideas about things."
"They already do that. My neighbor blocks my view of the waste of the world."

Saw something the other day shoes that's what was seen the other day the other day what was seen was shoes they are still shining shoes that's what was seen the other day.

The bottle was empty their bottle was empty the one they had been sharing and the startling thing or not so startling thing as they somehow managed to remain a thing or became more of a thing each of them more an item scribbling that smudged on the back of a plastic card none left as they thinned them out their words to each other like planers shaving away the sides of their frames of reference both of them knew that they had both forgotten who had drank the last amount and yet both insisted that the other knew that the other was in denial and took turns blaming themselves that's how it went.

"It was an accident and don't say there aren't any."
"I wasn't going to. At least I'm not one to say if when I meant since."
"I'm sure you've mixed words up many times."
"Of course I've mixed words up. It's commonly referred to as communication."
"You know what I mean."
"Apparently not."

Temptations to open close open another tab ran up his tab in the bar downstairs down the street if it had been down the street he might have turned down that alley that to the used bookstore down the steps where the old woman in the trenchcoat would piss. One would walk carefully down the steps or not remember and stare at the drain in the concrete in the corner the dark corner across from the steps and not put it together not put anything together.


- Max Stoltenberg