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

LATE EARLY LATE

Late in the night early in the morning darkness blankets it all for the coffin of ideas snoozing and coughing back awake not quite but late for breakfast and more hot grease in your veins ear lobes raised to the ceiling where they smash into blocked eavesdropping all the floor you plummet to in desperate anguished flossing that snaps the strings attached to every word you stir in the bowl that won't flush you won't flush to keep the ground from getting shit on oh wait like that hasn't happened before overflowing toilets happen brimming with excitement that kind that makes you declare, "Oh, shit!" to an audience packed into your musings your lips are moving ever so still but if you listen carefully or in case you missed just in case you missed it the echoing in the bathroom is you coming out of one hole or another in your body sprung a leak your father did into your mother who sprung a leak and here you are draining away into a bowl that's overflowing and leaking into the bedroom where you have to wait for it to maintain some sense of not being so wet and not smelling too bad before going to sleep and then you sprain your neck looking up at the clock that reminds you how late in the night early in the morning darkness blankets it all for the coffin of ideas.


- Max Stoltenberg

DISHWASHER EPISTLES

In the back was where they still sat as the time clock conveyed them from town and from out of town in the back was where they still sat as the time clock conveyed them as they sat on their objections thumbs plugging up their bitterness their murkier chambers for inconsolable arrhythmia thumbs up jammed in the direction of the betrayed secrets of the disheartened. The autosave is fucked up and another crash strains tongues through cuffs of shattered glass. Normally wouldn't mind when waking from forgotten dreams dissolved in the acid of thoughtlessness another headache slept on the left slept on the right didn't matter again the ibuprofen isn't where it's supposed to be it suppositions of nauseous setting of the Sun. Brought this on ourselves did we trapdoor clerks spilling out the bottom of the building's ass.

"What is that beeping?"
"The fries are burning?"
"We are the fries. Is someone's hard drive broken?"
"Did the administrator forget she left a call on hold?"

Graphic calendars you think you're going to tell me what you think we went out we went back in and we're stuck hearing about the day and what it could be somewhere else and it doesn't matter because we're stuck inside hearing the same things over and over again and there was standing on tables and crawling under pews sliding along the floor pulling ourselves up to that spot that very spot where we stand and get stuck where graphic calendars fall from the balcony poured down by the overweight dissatisfaction of doing what you resent and there is absolutely no way out of it and the gory positive attitude's blade is turning in our backs holding us in place graphic calendars you think you're going to tell me tell us all what you think what we think out we went back in and we're stuck hearing about the day and what it could be somewhere else and it doesn't matter because we're stuck inside hearing the same things over and over again and there was standing on tables and crawling under pews sliding along the floor pulling ourselves up to that spot that very spot where we stand and get stuck where graphic calendars fall from the balcony poured down by the overweight dissatisfaction of doing what you resent and there is absolutely no way out of it.

"What was I doing in here?"
"Are you the one who broke the picture frame?"
"Came in here for something."
"Stumbled into or out of the obvious have you?"
"The obvious? I've been bringing down the Earth's value since I was born."
"I gather you're going to claim it was the slamming of a door that led to the broken picture frame."
"'Twas the infinite regress that led to the slamming of a door."
"Says you," they quipped as they dug at an actual substance on the keyboard and ended up typing the letter J 28 or 29 times.
"The infinite regress keeps me flapping my gums."
"The three-bumped block."
"The what?"
"The lego the one with three connectors on top a sixer cut in half. You think a kid running with scissors is bad."
"I do think they're quite bad."
"A kid wielding scissors cutting one in half. Have you seen what it does to the underside warped under there that's me."
"Are you trying to get out of doing even less work by not having to operate scissors?"
"No I'm warped."
"Always suspected you were. Your underside is warped?"
"Now is the perfect time to mock me."
"And I haven't worn a watch in a spell a little past half of forever."
"You should then move on to puncturing me with receipt holder spikes."
"Have you ever looked at your personnel file?"
"Then dump my bleeding body into the incinerator."
"It doesn't matter if you're too disinterested to ask as you would put it there's nothing in there."
"My inflamed horrorshow mortal remains end up getting jammed in the shaft and you would be obliged to harpoon me down with a broom handle."
"That's because they know they know all the time I've wasted and that's why they hired me."
"You can't divide forever in half. It wouldn't be forever if you could."
"Or this is all about their critique of my theory of knowledge."
"I didn't think you had a theory."
"Neither did I until I sat here one day and noticed I was getting ink from my signature stamp all over my papers and desk and my clothes put too much into it I guess didn't want my stamping to fade as quickly as it had before and I knew it had to be from now on keeping this world in the window a small flat circle there from such a distance but there so I was aware of what I had checked out of into my spectator theory of knowledge never could get used to the sound of my own voice could have been a bark or a chirp the shrieking death of a rabbit for vanity the dark implicating stains of ink on my pants called out to me in the ink of my signature in the alien groan of another unfamiliar recording bad aim of the knife slitting the throat of theory draining the blood out into a hollow purity choking on the emptiness of nothing but theory."

The prospect of staying late they peeked past each other around the corners of stacks of documents the heat of desert darkness encroached on the walls of the office one of them told the other a short story a former employee had told them of Whistler's Orchestra a short piece in 8 paragraphs of which 5 had been lost and only half of one paragraph poorly reconstructed or so it felt that way at least to the one telling the other would have insisted this to be the case even though the other's disagreement with this opinion would soon follow. The teller of the former employee's shorter short story visited the bathroom prior to starting in order to avoid any more ruined pants in a likewise interrupted and already butchered abridgment.  He told of how a former employee in the cafeteria told him about the motley crew of eldest born teens who had walked off into the waste and came upon a building once a library that had been turned into a mausoleum abandoned to become a makeshift concert hall and then a fast food establishment that had burned to the ground. One of the adolescents spoke after a long silence standing around blackened walls the shortest said that her parents had taken her and her brother to see an orchestra perform and instead was tormented by a large puddle of folding chairs filled with people who put their lips together and fifed large logs of annoyance none of them seemed the least bit invested in putting a point on to let fall and splat on the stage from between their legs to end the wheezing and skirling. She recounted how she and her brother walked out and drifted through a nearby park that had been ripped by a succession of messy storms and her brother sat down by a hole where one of the biggest trees used to grow and asked her to tell him one of the bedtime stories she made up for him when he was younger maybe she would remember the one about the duck who was an aging knight fighting his last battle where his bill was cracked off from his head and as Sir Quack lay dying on the field he saw his bloody and dented helmet and then moved his eyes ever so slightly to look upon his bill open with the melting voice of his killer.

Graphic calendars you think you're going to tell me what you think we went out we went back in and we're stuck hearing about the day and what it could be somewhere else and it doesn't matter because we're stuck inside hearing the same things over and over again and there was standing on tables and crawling under pews sliding along the floor pulling ourselves up to that spot that very spot where we stand and get stuck where graphic calendars fall from the balcony poured down by the overweight dissatisfaction of doing what you resent and there is absolutely no way out of it and the gory positive attitude's blade is turning in our backs holding us in place graphic calendars you think you're going to tell me tell us all what you think what we think out we went back in and we're stuck hearing about the day and what it could be somewhere else and it doesn't matter because we're stuck inside hearing the same things over and over again and there was standing on tables and crawling under pews sliding along the floor pulling ourselves up to that spot that very spot where we stand and get stuck where graphic calendars fall from the balcony poured down by the overweight dissatisfaction of doing what you resent and there is absolutely no way out of it.


- Max Stoltenberg

INFO SKIRMISH

How to get at it was the problem with the undigested or not yet digested parts positions the usual such unusual the usual blanks to fill in with the usual things we tell ourselves as we tread carefully making sure not to slip on the floor lubed up with the latest bodily fluid slick watch your step was it 2 or 3 go back to 1 and start over where you come in the door before you come in the door and wait press the button where you wait and press the button and looking at dark glass opaque with absence turning around to look for the mountains obscured by haze maybe not maybe which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the epistemological spin of the wheel is that how it is done how to get at it probably probably not which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the whatever some side effect special effect some side effect put it there and the skin is turning a strange unusual color usual color seen it before the last time your face looked down at the dirty rug in front of the toilet and the cafeteria tray saw it flying over the fence wanted to see one do that although it had be accompanied by the splatter of food the usual such unusual usual bruised menu for those who stand in line and forgot to bring forgot it on the counter in the kitchen back home turnaround swept by the exhaust of turnover or swallow it in a big enough gulp empty plastic bottle falling from hands bouncing off the concrete face planting a corpse too usual such unusual too usual a tired swing back against the button depress it with your ass your gut depress it and they will ignore you for it not anyhow how to get at it.

"Where are you going?"
"What? I was going to see if there was any coffee left."
"You just made a fresh pot."
"I did, but if Bellicose didn't call out sick again then it might be gone already."
"When did they hire somebody?"
"They haven't hired anyone in months."
"I thought they preferred us short-staffed."
"They do. It didn't register any of my progress. I have to fucking start all over again."
"Hopped the median have we? It's just that I don't recall us having anyone by that name. Are you referring to a document or an RPG?"
"Do you hear that? What is that? Does that sound like a swarm of bees to you?"
"Like what the last dust storm blew into the vents?"
"Just like that. Shit that sucked."
"No. I think it's one of the auditors in the next office."
"Scratching their nails or talons on something?"
"They have their own soundtrack utilizing dissonant strings."
"What kind of soundtrack would you say I have?"
"Along the lines of orchestral fragments that suggests music unable to form into anything coherent like a cigarette lighter that sparks but never lights."
"Not even a dirge?"
"Not a . . ."
"Not a?"
"Not a . . ."
"Not a what?"
"Not a sausage."
"Where did you go just then?"
"Where did I go?"
"Yes, where did you go?"
"When did I go is more the question. And I can tell you it wasn't during the dot dot dot."
"Is this about there being an infinite number of little sub-dot particles between each of the three dots?"
"I could go into that more in depth but there is neither enough time or space in work and sleep never mind all the time or space I have wasted inside a fax machine."
"I thought you were going to say a woman."
"If I were ever that fortunate it would have been more appropriate to frame it the other way around."
"I don't really give a shit when you went there's a septic tank in that head of yours and it's flooding the grass of my mood and that reminds me I've almost saved up enough to get my medical marijuana card."
"How have you managed to save at all? Are you starving yourself again?"
"Just putting off my creditors as long as I can that's all."
"That's all."
"And starving."
"I knew it. That explains why you look like an clear piece of shrink-wrap with nothing inside."
"It's not that bad. I'm ending up paying less. Fake card and what not."
"And what not."
"And that entails the loose lips and the sinking of ships what not right?
"Right. Although no bodies of water in this dried out barren void. Only bodies of bottled water. Loose lips messy shits."
"I have to make sure to protect my interests with all that swirling maelstrom of filth in that head of yours."
"I'm destroying worlds in here. I see darkness outside the window and inside every room. I burst every bubble other people float close enough to me. I watch every one of their pathetic little rainbows on those thin surfaces disappear into the nothingness they really are."
"Did you ever hear the one about the mother who had enlisted her daughter's help to clean her room in preparation for a move that was later postponed when the father didn't get the job. The mother found a collage her daughter had put together including a photograph of a woman leaning against a tree that had been drawn on some studio background. The woman leaning against the tree was naked except for a sheet of paper over her crotch that had a drawing of a man's face with his mouth open. The woman's hole wasn't even her own."
"I hear the auditor talking to somebody on the phone."
"What're they saying?"
"I don't know but it does sound like another dust storm outside."

The wheel is that how it is done how to get at it probably probably not which comes first in the mind which to end with which becomes close to it in the whatever some side effect special effect some side effect put it there and the skin is turning a strange unusual color usual color seen it before the last time your face looked down at the dirty rug in front of the toilet and the cafeteria tray saw it flying over the fence wanted to see one do that although it had be accompanied by the splatter of food the usual such unusual usual bruised menu for those who stand in line.


- Max Stoltenberg

SCANT PEERING

The shadows crafted the responses of the hidden nonsense made doughy for shit pizza the noble and not so noble mostly the not so noble mostly finger painting a brown mess the ceiling vibrating with the humming that gave one a headache her aunt's acid reflux precipitating sitting around meals delayed by planning too many cooks the water tastes funny again the same invitations guffawing their nauseated reticence to say anything while all around them on the other side of the wall at the end of the hallway the shadows crafted the responses of the hidden nonsense made doughy for shit pizza the noble and not so noble mostly the not so noble mostly finger painting a brown mess steeped in it teabag left out too long not good enough for the cup the jockstrap stuffed between the cheek and gum the cheek and bunghole.

"She went to his apartment," said the man in the orange shirt.
"And then what happened?" asked the man in the brown pants.
"She came back with a book," said the man in the orange pants.
"She was a reader," stated the man in the brown shirt.
"You are a highly perceptive one," remarked the man in the orange shoes.
"That's it for today," commented the man in the brown shoes.
"What's what for today?" asked the man in the orange shirt.
"I'm terminating this session," declared the man in the brown pants.
"You'll come back around to this," muttered the man in the orange pants.
"The gravitational pull is ferocious," coughed the man in the brown shirt.
"You can't escape me," bragged the man in the orange shoes.
"You were more genuine when you spoke on behalf of a this," snarked the man in the brown shoes.
"It's my blood that's keeping these walls standing," mentioned the man in the orange shirt.
"It's these walls that are keeping you sitting at your desk," belched the man in the brown shirt.
"You were more genuine when you spoke on behalf of a that," half-barked the man in the orange pants.
"I almost took one of my darker thoughts and said something, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings," said the man in the brown pants.
"What feelings? I don't have any feelings left," grunted the man in the orange shoes trying to sound mechanical but not too much like a cartoonish robot.
"Enough to manage half a bark," commented the man in the brown shoes.
"Was that what that was? I've never been management material no matter how badly they need a cadaver that's been dumped out in the desert to reheat," belched the man in the orange shirt.
"If you're going to construct an argument by appealing to a total lack of popularity then I'll leave you to your funeral arrangements," farted the man in the brown shirt.
"You're just saying that because you have a bug growing inside your dick," retched the man in the orange pants.
"The one that crawled out from between your mother's legs," hissed the man in the brown pants.
"You know this reminds me of a meal that I shit out almost immediately," quipped the man in the failed organ lounge.
"Which brings us back to dirty laundry," uttered the man in the lower definition corner.
"I'll send it out first thing tomorrow morning and it'll be back right after lunch," crunched the man in the bottleneck sticking out its necrophilia.
"Our dirty laundry you know the kind we wear on the outside of our uniforms. I was speaking what is that called?" wondered the man in the back of the cockroach display sprinkled with irrelevance and the facetious.
"I thought I returned mine," questioned the man in the room for questioning the man who was questioning him better than he ever questioned himself.
"Idiomatically. They wanted the original birth certificates mailed and they never sent them back and everybody still had expiration dates and theirs had to come up so quick and hers and mine the one with the soonest hasn't come up it hasn't been brought up no one no one brings it up," shushed the man the keyless key chain unworthy thermometer he shrinks down into between his pauses not saying much these days.
"No we traded them in for these wafer crumbed vestments we brush ever so earnestly after being dropped off outside trying to remove or slather on another layer for the carpool the metal can rolling through the desert the hourglass that never empties that can never be turned on its head," croaked the mass of blood born pathogens rendering ineffective the curtains for parting only merging and concealing.

She pointed to the footprints by the copier and set it up like this: "He said to her that it was her fault it wasn't time yet for their daughter not being ready yet to tell them spell it out for them that they left out a verse not the one about being passed over but the one where she does get included and that's when things went wrong and she turned to him and reminded him that it was he who had not allowed her to include that verse."

He nodded towards the gap in the cabinets between the top drawer and the bottom drawer and set it up like this: "She said to him as they walked back from the admin wing that she thought he had overplayed his hand in recommending her and everyone who had left with her slipping out cold back doors to return to their hot seats and he unperturbed mentioned that he had noticed her facial gestures standing in the doorway nods of agreement to everything he had said with his mouth on the front of his head he squeezed between his fists in the darkness later on reaching for nothing.

She lifted her chin at the camera above the door and set it down like this:

Notorious stairs folded into squelched annoyance
Depending on your choice of sabotage
Self-sabotage in the limelight
with a dash of separation
several pinches in the back of the shield
fallen over with disillusionment
and the grammar of caution
hesitant truth waiting outside
until they are finished scheming
and the silence that follows 
polluted with their bleeding annotations
of tall short fat bony 
waiting outside

Notorious stairs folded into squelched annoyance
Depending on your choice of sabotage
fallen over hesitant
until they are finished
that follows with a dash
and the grammar of caution
chapping lips on explanations
whiteboards scraped
with shriveled grass
stiff and frozen by the hot sky


- Max Stoltenberg

WHERE HEAT LAMPS MEET

I'll tell you about the upper parts of her ideas of lowered looks into it the way to rumble behind us rushing into things books purchased and forgotten skipped when they were young more presentable then plastic bins larger now for coffins for the dead ends of our imagination tried to go beyond the furniture and broke the window cracked glass smirks at us behind us rushing into things books purchased and forgotten skipped when they were young more presentable then plastic bins larger now for coffins for the dead ends of our imagination tried to go beyond the furniture and broke the window cracked glass smirks at us behind us rushing the wind the blood out through our outstretched arms lowering to the bottom that has fallen out lowering to the bottom lowering lowered looks into it the way to rumble behind us rushing the wind the blood with each note tapping in her ears her hair still now I'll tell you I'll tell about the box that had the shoes once filled with sore feet tilted in the direction of moving on dealing and getting over it catapulted towards the side of the building about the third or fifth floor why only prime numbers you may ask as you walk away it may have slipped your mind to ask how long she lasted we may have neglected to ask the question how long any of us has lasted overstayed this unwelcome visit a department a division neighborhood planet with a hostile bedside manner.

They heard something downstairs and each of them distracted themselves with area codes from their earlier years taking turns distracting themselves with types of elevators conventional hydraulic, hole-less hydraulic, roped hydraulic, traction, geared traction, gear-less traction, machine room-less, and ones with an elevator operator. They listened hopelessly to the silence upstairs and each of them distracted themselves with their least favorite foods taking turns distracting themselves with cold people and the utterances they had wasted on them. They heard something downstairs and each of them distracted themselves with struggles that had been minimized by others taking turns distracting themselves with the platitudes others had minimized their struggles with without hearing anything upstairs nothing upstairs.

"Are you going to check?"
"I was just about to."
"Go where?"
"Go check."
"Check where?"
"Upstairs? Downstairs?"
"Why did you say upstairs first?"
"I eventually settled on downstairs."
"When have we heard anything upstairs?"
"Only what we've been told or told ourselves."
"Never. We've never heard anything coming from upstairs."
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Ask questions when all you have to do is just say what the deal is and not drag it out."
"Because you seem to forget what the deal is and it gets frustrating."
"It's frustrating from my side of this craggy forehead."
"Are you going?"
"There's nothing now."
"Upstairs, but what about downstairs?"
"I don't really care anymore."
"Fine. I'll go myself."
"It's been it's been"
"Don't bother."
"Something I should have done more often."
"Whatever."

She dragged her cursor over the fountain that was out of service dried up discolored with weeds at its edges waiting for a link to pop up and the music stopped and then she was suddenly aware that there had been music trying to identify the style she clicked on the image and a warning emerged of potential infection she tried and hesitated to smile to herself in the darkness the headlights muffled by the thickness of the snowfall it looked so dirty in the night never mind the odd shapes of flakes a poorly made puzzle cut up and falling about them her she went to her reminders that still shined on her phone and added that they she not have to drive so slowly as they she made their her getaway that bumped into deeper clumps of teabags tissues snot pus blood each separated with monitors acrid aftermath of experience they she continued on speeding up slowing reminding as her phone's screen extinguished itself and joined the darkness and what fell about them her swallowing and ignoring the soreness in their her throat.

"How long have you been down here?"
"I've lost track."
"So it was you making that noise."
"I tried not to knock into anything."
"Really?"
"I think it's the floor down here."
"Sure, blame your clumsiness on the floor."
"I could have done that more often in my life."
"That sounds familiar."
"We're running out of things to say."

She opened the door to see what they would say now the voices on either side of the room the office the desert her face she had finished was about to finish and it had to go like this debilitated by what they would say now the voices stuck to the sides of the mixing bowl of her mind she was about to finish she was done since all sounded so familiar her age trying to desperately outpace how old everything sounded the same tired information she was so tired she opened the door to see what they would say now to see what kind of day would happen again she opened the door as she fell out of the car.

In the middle of the road she tried and hesitated to smile to herself a stunned red grimace twitching with shock smelling of nostrils hammered by asphalt she opened the door to where it was coming from and she was picked up in the middle of the road she tried and hesitated to smile to herself a stunned red grimace twitching with shock smelling of nostrils hammered by asphalt she opened the door to where it was coming from and she picked up where they she had left off.

"That sounds familiar."
"We're running out of things to say."
"The only thing we had in common was that we preferred the singular they."
"I had something to my name once before the ground was too hard to scratch it in with a stick. I had made $200 and took it to a bank to open an account. Life has erased so much from my memory except for how the guy carried my money like it was a little blap of shit."
"Did you hear something?"
"From downstairs?"
"Finally. I don't have to go over this with you like I did upstairs."
"Never heard anything from upstairs."
"Exactly."
"So?"
"So what?"
"Are you going?"
"Going where?"
"Going to check it out?"
"Just tell me instead of doing the asking me questions prolonged thing."
"I guess I look to comedy too much like leftovers."
"When was the last time you came across any leftovers?"
"Exactly."
"Whatever. I'll go downstairs."
"Let me if you really don't want to."
"Don't bother."
"Never mind."
"All that is on my mind these days is what if it never was."

She opened the door to see what they would say now the voices on either side of the room the office the desert her face she had finished was about to finish and it had to go like this debilitated by what they would say now the voices stuck to the sides of the mixing bowl of her mind she was about to finish she was done since all sounded so familiar her age trying to desperately outpace how old everything sounded the same tired information she was so tired she opened the door to see what they would say now to see what kind of day would happen again she opened the door as she fell out of the car.

In the middle of the road she tried and hesitated to smile to herself a stunned red grimace twitching with shock smelling of nostrils hammered by asphalt she opened the door to where it was coming from and she was picked up in the middle of the road she tried and hesitated to smile to herself a stunned red grimace twitching with shock smelling of nostrils hammered by asphalt she opened the door to where it was coming from and she picked up where they she had left off.

- Max Stoltenberg

AND THE SCARF

Maybe that should have been it the undelivered letter sitting on the corner of my avoidant peripheral seeing eye dog over the hill behind the eight ball dirty toaster filled with burnt crumbs maybe that should have been it the unwritten letter catching in my throat swamped by the plausible riding the waves of greasy napkins doing this while your mother is here in the other room with the lawyer I think she said he was staying over for the night everyday an issue everyday an issue this while your mother is here in the other room with the lawyer I think she said he was renting space in my nerves I think she said he was maybe that should have been it the thoughtless phone call floating in the cup left on the counter for 4 or 5 days or a couple of weeks with hairs of exaggeration sticking out of it maybe that should have been.

"Has the water started to boil yet?"
"Have they taken the tube out?"
"Are bubbles starting to form?"
"Is anyone going to stop by and determine that it has been long overdue and remove it?"

Gnarly propensity for chewing at fingers peeling off fingernails like trying to open a bag of stale chips this that could never be put right this that could never be put quite in the way that I would feel like my whole life has been a series of landscaping mishaps projects sabotaged experienced in my being as the constant extractions of a post-hole digger between my shoulders where my head once was.

"Has the water started to boil yet?"
"Have they taken the tube out?"
"Are bubbles starting to form?"
"Is anyone going to stop by and determine that it has been long overdue and remove it?"

They stood to one side of the pile of garbage rejected from a white elephant party as either too important or not tacky enough they didn't know where their town was where their house was in relation to the organic food store couldn't find the right honey made a right onto the wrong street at the wrong right wrong light where was the street for getting rid of stuff somewhere on their street in the back of their house their yard spilled out into the desert the city was a mirage pretending to be an opportunity for at least those who stood to one side of the pile of garbage she walked around to the other side and tried to put her foot down tried to push down her side of the room just to even things out rejected from a white elephant party.

"Then you'll play the last one."
"Then what'll happen?"
"Then you'll have played the last one."
"And that'll be the last one."
"Then the first one will start up again."
"It plays over again?"
"That's what it does."

I'm breaking it down this larger thing into smaller segments separated by days I take most of the day to clear my throat and sometimes it leads to hiccoughs and sometimes it leads to my heart beating in even more disturbing patterns and then another segment settles it smooths it out into a lulling stupidity you know what I mean no you don't never mind I'm breaking it down trying to keep my hands off the buttons never know what might happen.

"What happens is that it starts over again."
"It starts over?"
"With the first one."
"Is that what he told you?"
"And now I've told you. I've told you what he told me. What do you make of it?"
"What do I make of it? What did you make of it?"
"What did I make of it?"
"Did you try it out?"
"Did I try what out?"
"To see if it starts over again. Did you try it out?"
"Of course I tried it out."
"And?"
"I tried it out and then I had to stop."
"Stopping defeats the purpose don't you think?"
"Not if you don't want it to start over again."
"You don't want him to be right do you?"
"I just don't want it to be that way."

All he was going to leave behind were the dried bits of his mucus he had picked when he found himself stuck waiting between the walls of moments that he fancied were more significant than all the ones he found himself stuck waiting when they asked what he had discovered he would say or not say anything only realize that he had found himself stuck waiting and notice on the floor what was still on the carpet what had dropped out of his nose what was still on the carpet they had asked him on to ask him what he had discovered he would say or not say anything only realize that he had found himself stuck waiting between the walls of moments that he fancied were more significant than all the ones he found himself stuck waiting when they asked what he had discovered he would say or not say anything only realize that he had found himself stuck waiting.

"And did they eventually see him?" asked the man with the rash.
"They eventually resolved to see him, but decided as a group or rather they were countermanded as a group by one of the mid-level chaps that they should have him fill out an application for the position he had been hired on before his company was acquired the third time," answered the woman with parrot calendars in her office.
"One of the mid-level chaps did you say?" asked the man who was rather rash.
"One of the upper mid-level chaps," answered the woman parroting the man with the rash's way of saying mid-level as she could hear in her head how he had almost spewed carbonated soda trying to say stamina in the booth they shared at the last miserable fair.
"You mean the position he was hired on before the fourth acquisition," answered the man with the rash.
"Not the last one," answered the woman with parrot calendars in her office.
"I'm not saying that. The next to last one. I know that," said the man who was rather rash.
"It might as well be the last one with them wanting him to start over at the bottom not completely all the way at the bottom just barely above it," said the woman parroting the way the instructor of a mandatory webinar spoke out of her ass.
"Deboning the trout are they?" asked the man with the rash.
"Deboning the trout they have," answered the woman with parrot calendars in her office.

What death bed? Wake up to another wrinkle another fold the collapse drawn out accentuated in more folds and wrinkles obscuring the notches made in the doorframe marking the ascent of shoulders that now only move up and down in shrugs and the weight of disinterest. What death bed? The one behind the behind the curtain peeled away by the last why did you say that you have mouths to feed what death bed what will you say about the risks not taken besides the birthing in the desert under blades in the dark of night surrounded by cinder block shaking with traffic and the indigestion of the world besides the asking for your name to include in the next hat the next glass bowl of accusations. What death bed? The one behind the behind the curtain peeled away by what you say by keeping your mouth shut you have mouths to keep shut mouths to let speak even though they may drop you into the next hat the next glass bowl of accusations.

"Has the water started to boil yet?"
"Have they taken the tube out?"
"Are bubbles starting to form?"
"Is anyone going to stop by and determine that it has been long overdue and remove it?"
"Why don't you say flatscreen nobody says tube much anymore."
"Can I return it?"
"Only for the original item you got."
"I may as well take it to donation."
"I heard they have enough now to make a version of the town with less expectation."

Gnarly propensity for chewing at fingers peeling off fingernails like trying to open a bag of stale chips this that could never be put right this that could never be put quite in the way that I would feel like my whole life has been a series of landscaping mishaps projects sabotaged experienced in my being as the constant extractions of a post-hole digger between my shoulders where my head once was.


- Max Stoltenberg