DID A NUMBER

Leave me out of it like I have to say it it happens when I don't ask for it while the clouds thick with classroom ridicule can't install updates installing updates configuring it out for they were looking and sneezing in a hurry to avoid wiping themselves dripping with clouds leaking thick remains as another hem legs turn the corner out of watching after the backs of knees is that what they are after hardly worth the effort of having eyes having anything else above the nails of your toes. What are they after these days? These days after what they have been after all that they have been after these days knowing what it takes to take away what little is left to go enough of a dusty way between a couple of dead trees separated by a neighborhood or two someone is annoying over there whispering about relationships formed out of people looking up at those awkward moments catching someone else's eyes looking up or over into that awkward moment made out of someone else's eyes that look as if you just exited the foulest stall.  I've told him once actually I didn't tell him what I saw the other night or some time in between me and her the one with the dress that the rough bench couldn't let go but the rest of the crowd could not plenty of ifs, ands, ors, and buts in their short sentences long on ire and wide on bumping in to her her ideas of the sky when it still had space for sounds from mouths before they became twisted into pretense and sham eventfulness.

"A $1.37 for your thoughts. I know I know it sounds steep but I get tired of the change sliding around in my night stand and it's not enough for a chocolate bar that'll melt before I get it in my mouth in this oven of a place I can't get out of or enough for a soda and the cost has gone up if you haven't noticed and I know you have noticed so fuck that I want to get rid of the change or I'll put the coins on your eyelids if my all ready shitty mood gets any worse."
"I was just looking at the ceiling at the ceiling tiles."
"I can see that. What were you thinking and I thought I told you to keep your eyes closed."
"My eyes burn if I keep them closed."
"How do you sleep?"
"Not very well. Plus I don't have to do anything."
"I am the one with the hair-cutting equipment."
"Isn't it over there by your mirror? I did ask for a shampoo? My head's in the sink right? This is the sink?"
"What makes you say that? How do you wake? With a stare? With a case on your mind with a staircase in your head? I'm hearing I'm hearing right now or was it sooner earlier than now when the world when the world was I have to close my eyes but I don't want you to slip out of my sight out of my vision statement don't pause don't slow down at least not too much and just enough to keep going so the end so the ending doesn't come off as a question. What was I saying? It went over my the front of my blouse under this uniform ripped my blouse on my day off got called in Janet was sick again like I was it went right over the front of my uniform over my breast where my breast used to be I have to close my eyes but I don't want you to slip out of my sight I'm hearing I'm hearing right now or was it sooner earlier than now when the world when the world was always an oven."
"I just wanted to know if my head is in the sink the back of my head it is a little wet but that could be due to you cutting me a little too closely as you are wont to do."
"You're the one talking about wanting to do whatever the hell he wants. Looking up at the ceiling your eyes moving in the L-shapes of a knight from one tile to the other. You can reject my stab in the dark all you want but you know and have even admitted it yourself that you've been hit right behind the ear lobe left one I think I know definitely behind the left ear lobe. When I was about 9 years old I was in a chess tournament they had it in the gym which was the cafeteria they had all the tables out and I think my board was even set up near where I had eaten and the stains from my lunch of salami with mustard the yellow splotches were still there and I was thinking all I was thinking about was getting rid of those yellow splotches couldn't get rid of my stupid moves I wanted to get rid of those yellow splotches."

A title credential doesn't
balance out anything
puts you in a tube
sliding down a rectal cavity
out into the world 
where it stops 
where you stop
until you realize
you have to get up  
and run and hide
stand in the shadows
by the window 
until the Sun comes out
to play with your competence
want to be back
she does he does
where they can pretend
they didn't fall in
stepped too close to the edge
of the machine's gaping ass
what a premium fracture
right down the middle of each
of your eyes
writing smaller with your looking
averting your cluelessness
from the space filled in
by their existence
again
washcloth too dry
to break up any sign
of my foolish being here


- Max Stoltenberg