skip to main |
skip to sidebar
And then it was nothing again
And again this was how it came out
Didn't notice it the way you wanted
Got a part of it somehow
A very little part of it
no credit left
scratching just under the top
of the socket
a cut into skin a groove of bone
a groove of behavior
patterns in the life
dwindling or going back and forth
between laughing maniacally
and silence suturing lips together
underneath the bloated fetus
overdue everything is always
so fucking overdue
looking distracted obsessed
with the long hair
hot wind blowing it around
a mirage in high definition
of never being able
to go back
and undo anything
walking alongside the one
who always knew better
until I dragged her out of the water
the hook protruding bloodily
from one of her nostrils
the one on the left I think
her left it was
baited with fake commonality
fucked by the vapid universal
emptiness ignores us
waiting it all out
until we have wasted our
final putrid breath
darkness grows in annoyance
of the clicking on and off
after the Sun and the light switch
brains chirp on the rock
eroding into the desert
of my insomnia
- Max Stoltenberg
Couldn't recall to you or tell you when it dried up or when it became what you were after or thought you were after and you were after it much more after it or way later than you have given thought to and it has been arranged or worked out or bled through a sheet of paper stuck to a mirror in that room they can never seem to cool down with all those mirrors and the fans that haven't spun in years or pretended to move to even hover just hanging about over that one the one with the pen shaking in his hand scribbling on a thin pad of sticky notes yellow with fearfulness skepticism he calls it but it's really terror of having to answer for it or recognize that she sits behind him if he would just turn around and see her legs the ones that move even less than the fan blades just hanging about over that one the one with the pen shaking in his hand scribbling and grinding his hesitation wondering if any wonder can be flossed out and conjure a little thread of blood of past humor about the tissue of lies and he uses his fingers and a gentle cleanser for bringing forth or out an application when they used to spell it out when there were still walls or doors closed for meetings of personal touches of accidental contact didn't see you there or the original one who divided my attention between the above and below tendencies rendering me stuck.
She is looking over your shoulder for nonsense to reappear and roll her eyes and her skirt she keeps a copy in her breast that is left for scrambling for ideas baked outside in the searing walk thought I parked it there have nothing to listen anymore and maybe can keep walking and what was that coming down out of the sky the other day an expectoration of the rest of the universe rejecting our changes in anything staying the same for us each other and mostly the times when we avoid each other's resistance to staying out of it this existence and its intrusion into the void an invasion of emptiness leave us unthought leave us now too late way later than you have given thought to and it has been arranged or worked out or bled through a sheet of paper stuck to a mirror in that room they can never seem to cool down with all those mirrors and the fans that haven't spun in years or pretended to move to even hover just hanging about over that one the one with the pen shaking in his hand scribbling on a thin pad of sticky notes yellow with fearfulness skepticism he calls it but it's really terror of having to answer for it or recognize that she sits behind him if he would just turn around and see her legs the ones that move even less than the fan blades just hanging about over that one the one with the pen shaking in his hand scribbling and grinding his hesitation wondering if any wonder can be flossed out and conjure a little thread of blood of past humor about the tissue of lies and he uses his fingers and a gentle cleanser for bringing forth or out an application when they used to spell it out when there were still walls or doors closed for meetings of personal touches of accidental contact didn't see you there or the original one who divided my attention between the above and below tendencies rendering me stuck.
The jersey the blouse swirling inside her sip puckering her lips in lack of appreciation for the thrown together at the last minute next to last minute just another minute just another damned minute plaguing the compliant marching in your head stomping the moisture the stickiness through your eyes mail forced through the slot of your evaporating interest dried up or when it became what you were after or thought you were after and you were after it much more after it or way later than you have given thought to and it has been arranged or worked out or bled through a sheet of paper stuck to a mirror in that room they can never seem to cool down with all those mirrors and the fans that haven't spun in years or pretended to move to even hover just hanging about over that one the one with the pen shaking in his hand.
- Max Stoltenberg
Temptation building blocks of time and space choicest neglect eyes watering with misery or boredom more like disappointment under the stairs squinting between the steps wiggling the railing the house the building shrugs not budging the planet was his toilet paper as he rolled down the embankment most of the grass smeared into the dry clay dissolution of the exhausted pronouncement her face at the end of the sentence forcing a smile straight line of annoyed expression out of the socket and into the corner of the mouth grinding the teeth on the other side of the mood swing see-sawing along the table tabled idea holding one's vague breath steaming up the metal on the buttons to the right of the elevator door. She forgot what floor she was on and it made a difference in her mind the direction she was heading the elevator up or down she forgot what floor she was going to and it made a difference in her mind where she was coming from when she encountered them tried to break it down for them without being insulting although she fantasized telling them all to fuck off being and how insulting it all is don't mention until I am done saying that put another way as he speaks for her moving her lips while the words collide into each other silently just under the roof of her mouth not much beneath the surface pools cloudy with plans squinting between steps out of sequence for extinguishing oneself.
"What are you looking at?" she asked him.
"The TV," he answered her.
"It's off," she said getting up to crumple up another Pop Tart wrapper and sitting back down to stop herself.
"I'm looking at the darkness," he said trying to talk himself into staying put and conceding to another glass of warm water and then forcing himself to go to the freezer for a couple cubes of ice.
"What does the darkness make you think of?" she asked him turning on the fan on the table and realizing it isn't facing her and as she turns it a bug is spit out from between the plastic blades.
"It makes me think of the patterns on the bathroom floor while I was sitting on the can," he answered her remembering how the fish had churned in his stomach the night before or the night before that when he had the nightmare about the bar stools fighting with each other in the kitchen and how he wasn't sure if it was their kitchen and everyone stood there and did nothing and could criticize even though he knew he too enjoyed the crash of the wood.
"You shit on the floor?" she asked him knowing that of the three: guilt, nausea, and fish - nausea was the most prominent.
"Yes, I shit on the floor and attempted to analyze the patterns of wine and bent conjugation," he proposed not on a single knee.
"Bent what? If it makes you feel any better," she began to say in an enthusiasm that feigned no matter no matter as the side of the index finger caressed the cheese grater.
"No, I didn't shit on the floor. What?" he answered and asked.
"What?" she asked and also acted as though she had not heard what he said or cared about anything he had to say at least the latter was true.
"What were you going to say?" he asked her waffling between how many flushes was it? 3 or 4?
"I was going to say that I don't care if you shit on the floor," she answered almost talking about her private decay when she had decided that geometry was too graphic.
"Now you're saying that because of your apathy or because you think it's not that bad a thing once in a lonely while or because you were scrolling and your thumb accidentally gave too much weight to that option of course it was your apathy," he told her as he looked at the napkin convinced the stain reminded him of that presumptuous asshole from the graveyard shift at hospital no just the graveyard.
"I hate when that happens with the scrolling."
Diseased feet following you
to your next opportunity
taking you objecting
taking to you and whining
about this and about that
perhaps we journey
who are we kidding
when we look in the mirror
and at who?
who is that?
don't ask don't expect me
to know
On the rides we took
into the wasteland
filled with expectations
burst balloons of recognition
unregarded barking
nibbling at her
the ends of her hair
the ends of her
and how she managed
when she was heard
ignorant reflection
look at it
the thing with the blank look
taking off the spectacles
and rubbing your face
until she drowns
- Max Stoltenberg
Head applied to the corner of a table with a cutting board on it wondering asking the question having something to do with pondering who left the slices of cheddar not as sharp as had been described by the woman with the red hair and the way she used her thumbs and held her breath can't say that I blame her the cheddar with the dark spots more brown than purple depending on what you disliked the most or found the most repulsive when you stumbled across it and how you have stumbled head applied to the corner of a table with a cutting board on it wondering asking the question.
who is she texting?
What did he do or not do interrupted distracted by the metaphysics of it all the essence the bare bones and those had been buried a long time ago in his layers of what he did or did not do interrupted distracted by the underlying beneath the floor where he had spent most of his time while the rest of them did what he wanted most what he really wanted all those years after the therapist had asked him the adviser the face in the window at the counter was for them to forget about him so he wouldn't have to feel responsible for not feeling responsible or whatever it was when he scratched his ass and accidentally went a little too deep into the seat of his pants.
who are you texting?
someone
Interesting? Interesting to who? in what way is it being suggested in a catastrophic sense seems rather boring when compared to standing on your feet all day and what it is that you do when you get home and not even that it's the thoughts going through your head while you are standing all day nobody asks about that and if someone fucking does then they scatter like the hugest corpulent bugs you can imagine into nothing or someone and that and that someone comes home with me and has made my side of the bed crack and the split waits until I am about to fall asleep and then it worms its way right up into my head applied to the corner of a table with a cutting board on it wondering asking the question.
- Max Stoltenberg
The dryer is vibrating into the ceiling making the sides of the jaw ache abnormal imbalanced unnoticed discrepancies scratching the insides of your stomach like a basketball of a sticky note drenched in bloody cheese curds adhering to the bottom of your brain forget about clearing your throat or anything else to catch your breath when everything else catches in your in-betweens. Came upon this and shame dries the offshoots your wasted existence hands left and right stretched out and making fists one open one closed one smacking into the other doesn't matter which why should it? and there continues or ends or begins the next spill the next sticky spill to clean up with a tissue or toilet paper looking at a menu if that is what it is going back over it the dream after all these decades and seeing the coloring book nothing has been touched by a crayon as of yet the diseased outlines faded copied stuck together pages pulled apart and letters words are missing and you look up at the mirror in the hotel room was it is that how was it how looking up at the mirror or right into it and seeing yourself missing like the words in the coloring book laying on the bed and mother is over in the corner what did she do because that is where your reflection ended up.
It is cloudy today and the heat still violates the holes that land nowhere but on your person who showed up late forgot again a rough couple of days sticky spills you know and worms slithering out of your thoughts about the air and how filled with disregard it is how that is how it is.
Permanent links to loosening knots tangles leaving out of disinterest or a brain just going bad in the box for too long forgotten it had been pushed further and further to the back of the box. Index finger about to tap a shoulder and wasn't sure if my mouth was covered when she turned around and looked like she had noticed me not for me mind you just in case I was talking to myself and I was how that is how it was with me just didn't know if she caught me talking with myself is that who I was speaking with this time this space of a few or several certainly several minutes vaccinated against anything novel or shorter than that and that how that is how it is.
Napkin dispensers litter the landscape if that is how they refer to it as a landscape a desert landscape scraped together or apart apart more like nothing to like about it a desert is a planet with shitloads of miles of mastectomies all quilted together accented with mountainous scars and she she had to do all the changing after performing and trying so hard not to smash the camera into a million pieces and grind them into his eyes of vileness is that how what is that what it takes to shut up the silence leaking into your head pressed up next to the rest of the void of the universe.
And she picked up the lollipop from the ground and looked at the ant that was barely moving stuck to the cracked candy tiny insect body bent as it was how as it was overhearing the older girls and the dresses and the purses and the lips dry with irritation sighing the is what it is knowing or pretending not to know how much the is is made of what it isn't. Douche-bags not far around the corner lurking in the light the stage light evaporating the latest question precipitating in a puff of complacency staring at the empty mirror hesitant to peek in the corner where is that where mother what did she do because that is where your reflection ended up.
- Max Stoltenberg
She walked away from the car and contemplated the morning and evening only to come around to the afternoon when feeling a rock had gotten into her sandal she stood on one leg not for long as she lost her balance and thought of the mop next to the vacuum cleaner next to the chopstick one of the chopsticks that had fallen onto the floor next to the birthday card from last year the one she had told herself she would get rid of during that really shitty week quite more than all the other shitty weeks.
She walked away from the wash and distracted herself from the thought of the noise the thought of the silence only to come around to the afternoon when noticing an anonymous message had gotten into her stream running down this leg of her journey looping around the wreath she swatted at covered in gnats someone had told her not to do that trying to remember when that was when someone had told her not to not to think so much about the noise about the silence and when she had first told herself not to think so much about what someone had told her not to do that trying to remember passwords or names or numbers or addresses as she walked away from the wash from the wreath of wire not covered in anything and distracted herself from the thought of the noise the thought of the silence the thought having to do with what she would be covered in eventually.
depressing hands it to her
changing shifts of repeating grunts
aging into sheets of spilled coffee
walking the dead dog
over to the cliff
of his presumptions
her expectations always
ended there
orange excuses for solutions
stirred into routines
accumulating into a pile
of fans clogged with thick
dust
where he returned his efforts
and she walked away
again
leaving the blame
where it belonged
and its smell tried to follow
vines of sarcasm knifing
memories and connections
puncturing her future
- Max Stoltenberg
Went down the stairs and to the sliding doors pulled the stick out of the track and put it on the bench where this ass would sit gradually slid the glass door with hand prints that catch the stare of the Sun until it blinks again with pollution walked without shoes over the rocks in the backyard this one had bigger ones sharper ones than the previous house that burned the smolder is still in my head moving from the middle further back with every scrape of forgetting stub one of the toes of the right foot beginning to climb the back wall could have gone out the front door wanted to do this way don't know if wanted is the word have always liked to do away with words haven't talked in days or weeks and yet there is still all the thinking envious of the cat read the eyes the whiskers of indifference muffled silence not bringing anything she said I left my notepad somewhere stopped showing up for sitting planes circle in the water within me as it evaporates as it all evaporates disrupting nothing for changing nothing heels dig in to the back of your neck digging in for another mesmerizing rehearsal of routine checks that bounce off the chest lungs fill with disgust no that's not it nothing is it not even despair watching people avoid death by watching it all day dragging their folding chairs closer to the precipice of involvement in the whatever of picking up an empty cup sticky bottle cracked plate greasy napkin and leaving them in the next room over the wall snapping your finger at the hot air what a what mismatch an asking myself what I could have done differently and yet and yet doing it in yet another different wrong way under the same heading that keeps all the weight of the abyss of the universe from crashing down on your sweating head taking nothing with you as you jump down to the sidewalk on the other side of the backyard wall back on the street as the cells of the neighborhood pass by behind you as you drift off into the point that never vanishes the walls the houses the landscaping the drains that pretend not to imitate each other or maybe they are so proudly so pathetically feet burn as the sidewalk turns to crickets turns to dirt and weeds stretching for miles between addresses clearing the throat no heads to look with misunderstanding with eagerness to stick their interpretation into your eye sockets until your head leaks with ribbed ego condoms sticking out of your passages tickled by the deadness of outside where you and everyone else took it out on that until it ceased to look back with anything only walking on the bottom of the dry tub of existence looking for the next hole to drop down and land you never keep falling just roll over and onto the floor of some department called the following day when you went down the stairs Went down the stairs and to the sliding doors pulled the stick out of the track and put it on the bench where this ass would sit slid the glass with hand prints that catch the stare of the Sun until it blinks again with pollution walked without shoes over the rocks in the backyard this one had bigger ones sharper ones than the previous house that burned the smolder is still in my head moving from the middle further back with every scrape of forgetting stub one of the toes of the right foot beginning to climb the back wall could have gone out the front door wanted to do this way don't know if wanted is the word have always liked to do away with words haven't talked in days or weeks and yet there is still all the thinking envious of the cat read the eyes the whiskers of indifference muffled silence not bringing anything she said I left my notepad somewhere stopped showing up for sitting planes circle in the water within me as it evaporates as it all evaporates disrupting nothing for changing nothing heels dig in to the back of your neck digging in for another mesmerizing rehearsal of routine checks that bounce off the chest lungs fill with disgust no that's not it nothing is it not even despair watching people avoid death by watching it all day dragging their folding chairs closer to the precipice of involvement in the whatever of picking up an empty cup sticky bottle cracked plate greasy napkin and leaving them in the next room over the wall snapping your finger at the hot air what a what mismatch an asking myself what I could have done differently and yet and yet doing it in yet another different wrong way under the same heading that keeps all the weight of the abyss of the universe from crashing down on your sweating head taking nothing with you as you jump down to the sidewalk on the other side of the backyard wall back on the street as the cells of the neighborhood pass by behind you as you drift off into the point that never vanishes the walls the houses the landscaping the drains that pretend not to imitate each other or maybe they are so proudly so pathetically feet burn as the sidewalk turns to crickets turns to dirt and weeds stretching for miles.
- Max Stoltenberg
