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Crap
looked at them
say that and swell
negatives positively repulsive
my actions are fly paper
on this plane with a search engine
fueled by shit running on full
cats shelved on blackened seats
lots of things sharp things
going through people
eyes pierced with heartburn
grass on fire
they call it grass
dried up wire
threading its way
through dividers for classes
cancelled due to increased
enrollment fantasies
bras with plastic nipples
shaped to punctuate
what goes ahead
doomed ventures
middle initials
smashed between voids
on the couch
faint
faint eyes
smiles disappearing
middle initials
smashed
- Max Stoltenberg
I always thought or so I figured that the upper case managed to erect a false sense of pride in humble middles she outlined her breathing in and out tortured for being in the Sun in the Sun wouldn't that be a return the lady would stare at you in contempt long after you sizzled out of recognition to crinkle back into a bloody twilight marred with with with with I feel I feel or so I figured that the upper case managed to erect a false sense of pride in humble middles she outlined her breathing in and out tortured for being in the Sun in the Sun putting it together putting together the money the money that is a joke in the Sun tortured with residence after abiding in the skipping of time as it glances off the last spill you made I made we made I always thought or so I figured that the that I feel I feel crazy I got that term from work from my friends from my family from people my family hung out with when they used to hang out with people and complain about them the next day or because they couldn't fall asleep on the other side of the wall where I listened not being able to fall asleep.
I lifted the bottle with hardly any resistance due obviously obvious now due to its emptiness obvious now I stop going to him the password the code the answer I've made up to the question by falling down out of her my mother to the ground thunking it out for myself after having before having little to go on so much to go on enough to go on that fit this in front of me within me and now the obvious now that I start to see not see so clearly as I start to slip out of the car of attention to this these events these introductions to people who smile their smiles overrun their boundaries and spill and unravel the wool over the eyes mention that to the inspector and she just might see to it that you'll need to come back and wait in that line over there pointing at it with this finger with this finger I thee could never put all the books back and they're watching me to confirm that I have been copying someone else's lack and the article mentioned you not in a very good light but it did mention you the kind that comes through like a wet sack forced through a hole in the overcast.
It's another day, but have you seen or spoken with the counter and what remains of her family what a way to treat someone who counts life seems to be about getting rid of where it wants to add itself who has a voice for sitting with three different pants and trying to hide their penchant for unzipping and pretending to listen and we have always said a buttload is a lot and meanwhile back to me laughing at what I thought you said and you didn't mean it didn't mean haven't meant anything and neither have I we pretend to both have known that pretend it isn't true or I say that when I haven't been paying attention so much for another day.
"What is this?"
"Your receipt a receipt."
"What am I going to use a receipt for?"
"When things get back to where they can get back to something sort of organized but not as much as they were when we complained about things being too organized."
"So you finally admit it."
"Admit what?"
"After forgetting and neglecting and forgetting to give me a receipt you give me one when it no longer means anything."
"I've given you a receipt for every little transaction between us down to exchanging looks."
"After I've had to remind you most times."
"Even when many looks were vegetative scans of my surroundings. I am surrounded by meaninglessness as my mind freezes under the harsh sun of the desert. Scratching my skull has proven futile."
"Is that another bunch of dried blood in your hair?"
"Probably and it's too late to write any of this down and so I'm saying it over and over again until I get sick of my own voice the repetitions and hearing it and now I know you have woven me into stitching of forgetting and neglecting and forgetting where neglect is the middle child."
"You also admit that you would prefer things to not get as far back as certain groups would promote certain points along the space-time continuum."
"What certain groups?"
"And why do ask that question?"
"Because I want to know."
"Sorry, I'm not going down that road along the space-time continuum."
"You do that thing my therapist used to do where I would ask him a question and he would ask me why I asked the question to get to what was underneath my question underneath my skirt is more like what he was interested in."
"Whatever happened to your therapist?"
"I think I heard he always wanted to get out of the desert."
"And did he?"
"I think I heard he spent all of his money so he could get to some island that sank into the ocean well it didn't sink the ocean climbed on its shoulders and pushed it down until it drowned like a bully at the community pool."
"More like a criminal, bullies don't follow through."
"The bullies I had growing up followed through."
"Then your bullies were criminals."
"None of them as far as I know ever got their comeuppance because no one ever followed through and I suppose that's criminal as well whether there's follow through or no follow through it's criminal."
as I start to slip out of the car of attention to this these events these introductions to people who smile their smiles overrun their boundaries and spill and unravel the wool over the eyes mention that to the inspector and she just might see to it that you'll need to come back and wait in that line over there pointing at it with this finger with this finger I thee could never put all the books back and they're watching me to confirm that I have been copying someone else's lack and the article mentioned you not in a very good light but it did mention you the kind that comes through like a wet sack forced through a hole in the overcast.
It's another day, but have you seen or spoken with the counter and what remains of her family what a way to treat someone who counts life seems to be about getting rid of where it wants to add itself who has a voice for sitting with three different pants and trying to hide their penchant for unzipping and pretending to listen and we have always said a buttload is a lot and meanwhile back to me laughing at what I thought you said and you didn't mean it didn't mean haven't meant anything and neither have I we pretend to both have known that pretend it isn't true or I say that when I haven't been paying attention so much for another day.
The tape the tape is wrapped around the box the tape is wrapped around the box filled with the dog's ashes as the bottom line fades in and out and the icons pop in and out of existence or above and below the surface where they sink or hang in there ready to answer anyone who asks who cares to ask who acts like they give a shit learning anything so they can sprinkle meaning on their food for thought and what it really looks like when it comes out the back of them. He thought they had three rolls of tape one of them is empty two of them are empty he knew they had only one roll of tape turning it around to find where he can separate the adhesion from itself.
Surviving for another semester
of depositing its gravel
in the oven of not very notable
whispered anxieties
rubbed out between fingers
scolded by the night's lack
lack of sleep
dreaming of drills between toes
as they grow together
and they call this
growth
- Max Stoltenberg
The sound of flapping the flapping of sound where it does little to amaze anyone anything perchance to skip a letter torn in half or slightly or not so slightly near the proximity of the middle doesn't have a heart anyway just paper and that little plastic window hate that window exposing your name and address where you are stuck in a house and what body you have been poured into congealing with every breath into some grey thing with a chest moving in and out the air of other people's movements in a game where they keep adding sides to the dice and yet and yet to still end up in some corner of the stark flat dry sandpaper decorated with sharp bushes.
Save it for another page until you forget it and then where are you? Where are you? In the thick smoke of burning post-blackout black and blues not that you can see it only think you can see it while you mutter to yourself and make those weird sounds with your mouth your lips until you notice someone is looking and then try to act like the other you've been confessing this to is really there which is what you thought in the first place and then and then you wonder what the fuck is the first place? You go back and as that lightheaded feeling gets lighter and thinner your fat stomach just laying there under your thinning out of whatever else the first place you try to find it in the desert then the green you thought was before that and then it ends up in a dark shed floating somewhere around Saturn before Saturn before the solar system before the galaxy before one of the contractions and expansions queasiness that's what it is a queasiness.
"Was that blood you just coughed up?"
"No."
"Looked reddish."
"It was lipstick."
"Come on."
"It was ketchup."
"How long ago did you have that cheeseburger? Last week? Month?"
"There must have been some residue in that hole I've been chewing into the side of my jaw."
"It's called blood. Which side?"
"Which side of what?"
"Which side of your jaw have you been chewing a hole?"
"The one that has the where I've been I just wait until I do it again that'll clue you in I do it fairly often many times in a day or just review my dental records the hygienist she thinks I'm boring a hole into myself."
"You are boring to me that is not to that artificial insemination student who walked in front of the SUV the one with all the bird cages in the back what a tragedy an avian tragedy that is for the birds."
"I know he lost an arm and a leg and now lives with his mother blithering on incessantly about being a blu-ray owner's manual. Which side?"
"Which side of what?"
"Which side of blood am I?"
"I don't know. Whichever side it is you could never stand it."
"Not the beginning or the end I mean the inside or the outside of it."
"You're a grinder not a chewer. The only thing I've seen you do with your mouth is let it back up and overflow onto the planet with shit and blood."
"I try to wear something on my feet the bottom of my right heel looks like cracked thirsty ground and the edges keep catching on the carpet like velcro and the segments pull and hurt like hell. Like hell more bugs."
"Reset your browser settings."
"No I mean they keep falling more of them keep falling out of the vents right where I'm . . ."
"Right where you're what?"
"I used to tuck myself up over the backseat of the car when I was a kid and look up at the trees as we drove down those roads that used go between trees. Know what I'm talking about?"
"Can't say that I do. You're letting it back up again and overflow onto the planet."
"With shit and blood. From a hole to a wound to a mission to becoming someone else's toilet."
A disease
strike it out
peel another layer
of skin from a thumb
can't light it
strike it out
a disease
sticking wires in
chest legs arms
tubes with seats
smelling of eaten
in a hurry
windows nothing flies by
falling through vents
right where
- Max Stoltenberg
She didn't have to kill meaning it would dissolve around her on its own like a camera cellphone flash that fades and hurts your eyes those bananas are going bad bought too many again or didn't eat them fast enough both she would say were the case as one of her ankles itched and she scratched at the one and pulled down her sock to see the red marks she left from her nails the toolbox had so much shit in it she couldn't find the extra brackets she thought were in there for fixing the bookshelf that fell and all the dusty books all the dust all the bent corners of books that were there before and that were there after the latest shelf had fallen and she looked at some of the titles and asked herself if she had read them why she hadn't read them yet yet she flipped through the pages of Amber Alerts Her Friends and Other Stories and began to look over a page somewhere towards the middle of one of the other stories entitled "Flesh Solitaire" describing a woman cursing rather colorfully at her lazy Susan that had just jammed and how she had to knock over various containers and "make a fucking mess" just to be able to reach in the back and "grab and drop the damned sea salt in the douchey desert." She scanned a little further leading to a couple pages on detailing an awkward encounter with another woman in a furniture store where the other woman apparently in the business of coercing information regarding a favorite sports team and signing some petition to stay in the kitchen drove the protagonist to call for the store manager who took the petitioning harpy's side. Only chapters later would she think of how his body secretes the obvious.
"How long has he been in there?" she asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" he squawked back at her.
"Don't tell me you forgot your watch," she said.
"No I remembered it. It ran out of battery," he muttered.
"Really? Seriously? How long has it been out of battery?" she asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" he squawked back at her.
"You are a clueless vague man," she said.
"I made sure to order both," he said recalling the cafeteria they had discovered with no walls, roof, or food, just bugs and piles of dirty skeletons.
III
She stared at the grimy building as she stood up a little over the rubble they both hid behind on a nearby hill. There were no windows on the lower floors and the few that there were on the upper ones had dark metal plates in them. As her eyes drifted back down to the lower levels she wished she could find a bathroom and then thought of when she looked for her and squat back down noticing how her knees hurt.
"He's probably better off in there," she winced.
"How could you say that?" he asked awkwardly.
"Because it's fucking true. Look at us!" she raised her voice but not too much to draw suspicion.
"I thought I had it pinpointed the moment when this all of this I don't know slapped me hard enough to help me realize help was ridiculous and not help in general but my help," he said thinking of the dog food dish he had stopped cleaning after it was apparent that any further effort would never return it to anything resembling somewhat clean not new said thinking thinking of the dog food dish he had stopped cleaning after it was apparent that any any further clueless vague.
"Our help this involves both of our wasted pointless contributions this is not all about you you know," she said rubbing her left knee in particular.
"I used to think it was when I watched my dog look up at me sniff at her food and walk away that did it. Then I thought you bastard it was when we were complaining about a cluster fuck of different things and just as my son was about to chime in I told him to can it after all that prodding him to stand up to those little pricks and what he told me they would say. Guess I wasn't in the mood or I never could hold too much shit would fall out of my hands so easily I can't remember what he did get off his small chest when he could actually give it words."
"And that was it?" she asked.
"What was it?" he asked looking at her rubbing her knees.
"The moment with your son that was the one you finally pinpointed as when you became aware of the pointlessness of your help," she said thinking of when they had stopped looking for her.
"No obviously that wasn't it either," he said.
Left something out
on and off too quickly
who was that?
what was that?
heart misses another
beat this person
climbing walls
they nailed things into
them
and their nails
- Max Stoltenberg
Where had that thing that they were going to discuss say gone off to? Tell you them to their face faces somebody threw them their faces against the wall next to the glass the glass window and watched them slide down most of the day and almost all night haven't even made it halfway down the wall don't know where the halfway mark is very certain about the halfway mark in their faces could always see that with their being so half-assed and now we're getting that red line underneath part of what we see and it's distracting us from the verses about the drowning in something or other that's been defecated triangles with shaved heads in the corners examining the morose toenails dragging along the floors of downcast closets threading the talks between lenses where had that thing that they were going to discuss say gone off to? Tell you them to their face faces somebody threw them their faces against the wall next to the glass the glass window and watched them slide down most of the day and almost all night haven't even made it halfway down the wall don't know where the halfway mark is very certain about the halfway mark in their faces could always see that with their being so half-assed and now we're getting that red line underneath part of what we see surrounding the painting of the reeking bed in darker shades of nightmares sinking into the folds of the soiled sheets their being.
Their being said whatever came to their minds in this place this place that is one not too generously measured off garbage disposal jammed until another one opens their mouth running a sharp observation around the rim of our lowered expectations falling down further into our guts smothered with more to do with less returning to the shitter just came from there left prematurely into the rest of the world as usual. The animals are getting up before we ask each other where we've been where they've gone that they were going to discuss say that thing that they were going to discuss gone off to?
Don't quite follow you
and never been one
not to follow
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Putting some things together."
"What things?"
"Birth and death."
"What are you talking about?"
"Or at least a little closer together."
"Are you intending what I think you're intending?"
"Thoughts and actions."
"Just come back into the break room."
"My therapist said neurotics have a major disconnect between their thoughts and their actions."
"I'll get you something from the snack machine."
"I thought you didn't have any money."
"The snack machine has a debit card reader now."
"I thought you didn't have any money in your bank account at all."
"Just not until after the next 3 paychecks that's all."
"And so I'm plugging those cables into each other."
"4 paychecks then I'm back to about base."
"Let go of my arm."
"Ground dirt level."
"Let go of my left arm if there was any confusion in that congested knuckle head of yours."
"Fine go."
Don't quite follow you
and never been one
not to follow
nasty ink of the asshole
gets on everything
standing in the doorway
of the same thing
over and over
and over
teacher said teacher said
and now
closing it behind me
a last kick
into my internal mess
sends me in the direction
of her bones
in the grave
"Did you hear me?"
"I did."
"Then go."
"I did just mentally it was practice."
"Go physically if that's what you really want. Plug your cables into each other. Go fuck yourself."
"I thought I was already doing that just by being here."
"It's really hot out there."
"I know."
"It burns your skin out there."
"I know what a desert does you ulcerated idiot. That's why I'm going."
"There's no water out there."
"I'm sick of the water in here."
"I've vomited twice today."
"I mean I'm sick of the water in here in my body."
"Twice is below average for me."
"I'm prolonging this and I know why."
"Because of my crafty argumentation?"
"No."
"Because they keep making you add more letters to the end of your name?"
"That's actually part of it, but no. I just find myself glancing out into that vast waste behind our complex and dreading how long it will take."
"Then come back in and do it some quicker way."
"They've taken all the sharp office supplies."
"I still manage to hurt myself."
"As do I just not mortally."
"You'd think with all the radios playing different channels at the same time that would be enough to send one over the edge."
"It was when they were all set to the same one that I thought did it, but now I can add another reason why I took so long to off myself to the list."
"You just reminded me that I haven't finished that report for Ruckus in Post-Human Resources."
"Will you shut the hell up?! Shit, working in a prison has to be the most literal fucked up metaphor there is."
"You're just realizing that now?"
"It comes back to me every so often along with the chest pains and the spasms in my thumb muscle."
"I get that as well the thumb muscle thing that is."
"All the desert is good for is drying out our dirty laundry."
"It's the little things in life."
"And a dry red wine sloshes around all that baggage back to life."
"My ex and I would fight over which one of us had to turn all the shirts right side out when folding and putting the clothes away."
"I thought there were all the infidelities that was the culprit."
"The culprit was that she couldn't take her shirts off like a normal human being and then we had to fight about it and that led to us disagreeing about all the other horseshit."
"They haven't taken the staple removers. I could use that, but it's a matter of them finding me at my desk and all that. I prefer the idea of doing the erasing myself at least the rest of it."
"It's the little things in life."
"Then there are all the checkpoints."
"I'm giving it until our conversations start sounding like those recorded phone calls that are programmed to sound like a person responding to what you say. That's what'll do it for me."
"Perhaps I'll wait till after work."
"They have checkpoints in your neighborhood."
"They're not in effect until about an hour after my shift. That gives me about a 15 minute window to get to the edge."
"What if they make you stay over?"
"It'll have to be next week then."
"Next week?"
"Next week, definitely."
Their being said whatever came to their minds in this place this place that is one not too generously measured off garbage disposal jammed until another one opens their mouth running a sharp observation around the rim of our lowered expectations falling down further into our guts smothered with more to do with less returning to the shitter just came from there left prematurely into the rest of the world as usual. The animals are getting up before we ask each other where we've been where they've gone that they were going to discuss say that thing that they were going to discuss gone off to?
- Max Stoltenberg
"Have you tried this one?" Plug asked pointing at the door he was approaching on the right. "Yes, I tried that one," answered Trench in a tired manner as he looked back down the dark corridor. Plug reached for the door handle as Trench commented, "You're going to try it anyway, aren't you?" Plug shook the door handle and opened his hand in a pathetic effort to untouch and undo his action. He said, "What?" "You didn't believe me did you?" declared Trench who continued down the corridor and around a corner disappearing from Plug's view as his voice echoed, "I told you already all the doors behind us I have tried." "What if we're going in circles?" asked Plug. "Squares," said Trench trying another door handle that did not open yet another door, "If we're revisiting parts of the building which we are not then we would be going in squares since none of the corridors have curved as far as I can tell. Have you noticed any curving?" "Only when I look out the edges do the corridors look like they're curving," said Plug moving his eyes back and forth. "Edges?" asked Trench speeding up as he noticed another door and then slowing down with anticipated discouragement. "Edges of my spectacles," explained Plug.
Plug turned the corner not the corner mentioned above but the next one after that actually two after the next one and by that next one the one after next actually one after that. Plug thought to himself about why he bothered to keep up with Trench at all until he caught up with him and saw that he was leaning against one of the walls and sliding his back down to sit on the floor. "What are we doing?" asked Plug sitting down next to Trench who responded, "We're pausing." "I know but that's not what I was inquiring about," said Plug. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather stay on this level of inquiry," said Trench moving his knees together and apart.
No it's not all the same to me
This dry ocean of cranky
after taste and second guessed
worries and insecurities
stirred with others' blinks
wary of elevator copulation
up the shaft
to the basement
underneath her abandonment
or was it his?
"Was that a poem?" asked Trench moving his knees together and opening the right corner of his mouth thus smashing the eye above it shut. "What poem?" asked Plug continuing, "I usually don't know what to say when someone doesn't want to accompany me on moving up a level of inquiry." "Well I heard a fucking poem just now," insisted Trench. "Certainly not on the outside of your head," said Plug patting his shirt. "Wary of . . ." began Trench. "I'm not wary of anything but your sanity if you must know," said Plug continuing, "Plug." "Why do you do that?" asked Trench looking at Plug patting his shirt. "It feels like I have a spider under my shirt. Did you notice all the cobwebs back there?" said Plug. "Why do you say your name every so often?" inquired Trench. "To remind myself about blank," said Plug. "Blank? You're not doing it to remember what your name is? You've forgotten just about everything else that matters," said Trench. "Could be. We'll just say that's what it is this time," said Plug.
And they remained paused there corners losing and regaining their turn in the sequence sequences that gave way to other patterns exhumed in their minds and as each of them nodded off and on Trench thought to himself as if he could think to someone else although how had Plug managed to think to him earlier he could deny it all he wanted he had replied to him in the form of a poem stacked the phrases had been wary of elevator blank what would they say it is this time was this time as they he knew they both did it all right he knew he at least did that they thought to themselves told themselves that their dirty laundry was behind one of these doors and as the sound of metal echoed in his brain he could see the stains left behind by his father's car that he continued to wait to pull back into the garage any time now as saw the detergent spill all over the top of the dryer and down between the machines he tried to joke away the anger's palpableness being joined by the sound of an arriving engine only to hear the terrifying quiet and his thoughts slipping between the machines.
- Max Stoltenberg
He'd say to her nothing it wouldn't arise it would feel like it was filling and then it wouldn't fill it wouldn't feel it wouldn't even think it it he'd say to her nothing and she would disappear one part at a time she'd force herself to play a part be a part a part and part herself and part he'd object and then sit there on the edge of what was her name couldn't hold numbers let alone letters let alone his toes rejected the carpet shaved to stretch as wide as the room needed to shut him into his narrow space between each care surrendering to the blankness of the present shrinking in the midst of the bickering parents of the past and the future they were still here and still now what the fuck difference did it make had they made in his tiny little shaft of a muddled statement dripping with wasted ejaculations he would
severance a new middle name
don't surname me
crumbs and petty looks
falling off the clouded reasoning
torn from angry fucks
knots in your reproductive ideas
and that's all they ended up
not being useful to smoke
rolled up into carbon paper
for burning into dying flowers
dirty water reprocessed by eyes
blinking blinking chicken
in plastic trays dealing out the
cards unsigned unsent undying
pathetic veins of reminding wipers
rubbing ears flapping vision
into distorted phone calls
think we heard enough
before another one is started
late has arrived the hand
held up to stop it
stop some of it
none of it
all of it
carries on
into the next searing day
fucking food food fucking us deep inside shit it out and call it a devouring some shit we augment only in this way ingredients for the factory minimized and shoved up our ass deep inside our reticence an itinerary for inertia loaded with crap crap cakes frosted with memories of times when recalled dragged out by nightmares and substitutions put in at the last few minutes of darkness before the glare of waking hours slapped us back onto the stage with stiff limbs for tripping over each other repeating unnecessary efforts for numbers for letters she would disappear one part at a time she'd force herself to play a part be a part a part and part herself and part he'd object and then sit there on the edge of what was her name couldn't hold numbers let alone letters let alone his toes rejected the carpet shaved to stretch as wide as the room needed to shut him into his narrow space between each care surrendering to the blankness of the present shrinking in the midst of the bickering parents of the past and the future they were still here and still now what the fuck difference did it make had they made in his tiny little shaft of a muddled statement dripping with wasted ejaculations he would
"Where did you get those?" she asked as she helped her children into the back of her minivan.
"Where did I get these?" he asked as the hot wind blew a note he had written directions on off towards the wash full of trash, weeds, and the excretions of the desert.
"Those are the blue ones. Where did you get those?" she asked closing the back door.
"I think I got them at the place right behind over there in the front along the main strip toward the back," he spoke as his mouth was somewhere else abandoning his mind that emptied of every place he had ever been.
"I don't think so. You probably got the blue ones at the end of that row around the other side. Know what I'm talking about? Never mind," she said turning the ignition and speeding away.
He looked toward the wash to see where the note might have gone where the directions might have blown off to as he walked around the back of the large metal containers and stopped as he reached the edge of the road looking down at where the dirt and sidewalk ended sort of ended and began tugging at the spiked tumbleweed stuck to his left pants leg had some gotten into his sock other sock?
Eyes opened and closed and opened at the smell of bugs and sounds of tuna fish squishing as the head moved around inside or was that paper ripped out of a hand out there outside the dark in here cans surrounded the head listening for the evening of the next darkness to catch up with the dark in here always in here opened or closed eyes opened and closed and opened at the smell of bugs and sounds of tuna fish squishing as the head moved around inside or was that paper ripped out of a hand out there outside the dark in here cans surrounded the head listening for the evening of the next darkness to catch up with the dark in here always.
- Max Stoltenberg
