Hiatus II
published all previous drafts. taking a break for a bit. heres a Yo La Tengo playlist if you’re still reading.
The other side of nothing
9th December 1990
All hopes collapse! The canal does not reach the ocean but merely peters out into a vast swamp. Alex is utterly confounded. Decides he must be close to ocean and elects to try and work way through swamp to sea. Alex becomes progressively lost to point where he must push canoe through reeds and drag it through mud. All is in despair. Finds some dry ground to camp in swamp at sundown. Next day, on 12/10, Alex resumes quest for an opening to the sea, but only becomes more confused, traveling in circles. Completely demoralized and frustrated he lays in his canoe at the day’s end and weeps. But then by fantastic chance he comes upon Mexican duck hunting guides who can speak English. He tells them his story and his quest for the sea. They say there is no outlet to the sea. But then one among them agrees to tow Alex back to his basecamp [behind a small motor skiff], and drive him and the canoe in the bed of a pickup truck to the ocean. It is a miracle.
McCandless, Christopher Johnson.
• •
Heyman Lane Blues.
Gaginng on the minutes is Mr.Clock. The nooks they offer him directions. They’re speaking; no, yelling. Then the first streak of light permeates through the windows, undulating the barren floor and its warm veneer of darkness. This frustrates the radio who gets very little attention for all her singing.
Behind closed doors, where classy people do rotten things.
This one, not the one that I talk about all the time. But the other one- unethical and acutely hypocritical. If she asks for more I’ll shove a cleaver up her cunt.
Insulated from so many things; not warned of even more things.
Mistaking praises for innuendos.
The smart kids will start a religion. The smarter kids will study politics. The smartest kids will start a war.
Not quite stable.
Small triumphs, large tragedies.
as if your prettiness is going to feed me.
fuck them who say they want to make the world a better place. disrespectful losers.
a banana shaped banana, rice cake and a cookie with lukewarm 1% milk for dinner.
I was up in a tree, chewing on the leaves when all the beautiful people started to evaporate.
Everyone thought I was dancing but it was the floor; it was very hot and the trees were out of my reach.
“you better than them you got in bed with”
the difference between things- contemplating vs doing and unhappiness vs depression.
Black history month. Native American history month??
Otis,”this bitch is supposed to hook me up with food, weed and feelings. shit!”
Ironic; like a porn named, “could’ve loved you”
the longer you’re awake, warmer the body gets; eye cells vibrate.
the newness of morning tea.
weave a future and struct it into something favorable.
the old lady got fired because the kids wanted a stir-fuckin-fry dinner.
“a woman who writes feels too much”, Anne Sexton
the actress is wiping the painkillers off her nose with her favorite dress; pretty she looks in those smeared streaks of white.
Nick Drake used to play his guitar and sing, facing the wall because he was very shy.
Simple, from a distance.
Your horse is taller than mine.
“fewer casualties”, J. Tillman.
What’s more beautiful than the abandoned shreds of something beautiful. At first you’re thinking this shit is weak. That you got gypped. You curse it the entire night, claiming it never hit you. Maybe you lied. Maybe you didn’t. Who knows? If they did, would they care? Then you call it a night and come to bed and “pum pum pudum pum pum pum” that shits hits you. It’s all inwards from then on. All the shit you don’t pay attention to- cow doo doo, the drugs you never try, lies that affect no one, trivial secrets, bland adventures, broken cigarettes, songs that never escape you, the weird friend of a friend whom you won’t smile upon, dirty napkins and jealousy- the other side of nothing.
Writing checks your ass will never be able to cover amigo
August 10, 2011
At the break of dawn, on the colder side of my bed, he lies slanted and shivering.
In shores, people come and go in twos. Holding hands in the back of pickup trucks equipped with loud mufflers.
He buys his grocery from fair trade but dines where Spanish speaking migrant workers bleed too hard for too little. In a hotel room, they sleep in fours and cry while looking at pictures of those on the other side of the imaginary line. Whom they promised a better future, better luck and better dreams.
the leaves cover everything else, in October.
I undressed her, first; her moonlit angular carnals emitted some sort of luminescence that permeated through the drunken stupor, my insides and conscience- I seemed to think I had one.
cosmo
10th May 2011.
Once upon a time, I quit smoking cigarettes. Not too long ago, I was living in a dorm room. Everyone started leaving. Its 3 am now and somehow I ended up in a residential area in Richmond. Awkwardly being part of a family in mothers day. I am standing outside of a house with no light shining on me. I look to the stars, there are so many of them. I think of how insignificant I am. then i pause and the actualization hits me that it was these very stars that exploded to form beings mundane as us.
One by one.
Whose pomegranate lip balm will have to rent a new place?
Who’ll father your child?
Who’ll keep your wife warm?
Who’ll love her like clay?
Who’ll wrap their lean thigh around her hips?
Who’ll choreograph their needs to yours?
Who’ll look for you in the penumbra of words to forgotten songs?
Who’ll nurture your ghost?
Who’ll replace you in that bathtub meant for two?
Who’ll bake you a cake?
Who’ll whip the cream?
Who’ll read you like a book but keep you like a secret?
Who’ll think of you in the solstice?
Who’ll long for you in the equinox?
Who’ll keep the promises you made?
Who’ll miss you- first thing in the morning and last thing at night
Who’ll lick your lover’s spine?
Who’ll discern the details of the other, darker, side of your character?
What will your reviewed paycheck look like?
Who’ll your mother be proud of?
Whose dreams will fall like rocks?
What will your broken empire look like?
Who’ll hanker for your ignorance-
Only to overlook it
Who’ll memorize your insecurities
Who’ll count the days till you are 21
Then 22,
And maybe 23.
Fat Woman Blues
Page after page, word after word, I try to progress.
Progress towards a character that in itself is a story,
And the story, an allegory.
Her name is on the back of
his page long biography.
we all have our preferred means of suicide.
I
Contrary to what you were told, she was a lot like you and I. Born to an audiologist father and a psychiatrist mother, in the upstate of New York. She grew up eating raisins, picking mushrooms and swimming in pools of bottled water. Known to have often smeared mud all over her face, she sistered twin boys three years younger. She picked up the accordion when twelve, mastered Italian before her fifteenth birthday and graduated from high school, with flying colors that is, days after she turned seventeen.
It was the year 1995 and even though she was doing great her family was in shambles; the grownups especially. Every night, after dinner, haunted by their important lives, they’d sit in the dining table and argue about gender, music, art, Oedipus complex, nascent affairs and the like. And before going to bed, they would list the sacrifices they’d made for each other. Finally they’d fuck then fall 
asleep. Every morning they woke up pretending to feel better but they were only growing more bellicose. So she wasn’t surprised when they broke the news about the divorce. It swept the twins off of their feet, but she’d seen it coming the entire time. In fact, she’d actually wished for it. It has been often suggested that she came out unscathed after all the drama, but the birds report otherwise.
A few weeks later she decided to put her hair in dreadlocks, paint “the lady is a tramp” (how New York bourgeois of her) in a few old t-shirts and go on a hike. After hiking for a week she returned. Her anxieties were waiting for her at the back door of the house. On the other side of the door was the kitchen and it had two more doors- one led to the dining room and other to the living room. Her cousin slept in the study while looking for a new place to move in to.
Later, that summer, she went to a music festival in Spain where she tripped on acid, smoked hash and wrote poetry that made sense to no one. Her friends were busy writing social narratives about their high school but in reality they were merely talking smut to become the epicenter of attention for as long as they could. Neither that nor the music festival lasted long. She did befriend this one kid who I will write about in detail later. Ok I will elaborate a little but not a lot, she never thought he’d upset her or she’d lose him. But it happened anyway; things fell apart. Things fall apart.
Anyhow, weeks before she was to go to college, the older one of the twins had his heart broken for the first time. It was a bit more serious than that- he had a fall but not many know that he was pushed; he had horrible dreams and would often wake up sweating if not screaming. It got to a point where even the thought of sleeping got him really worked up. Consequently, he was neither sleeping nor eating and this caused scissor pain in his stomach.
What had happened was they’d all gotten drunk and the girl had accidentally slept with his twin who was high on a concoction of illegal paraphernalia. He had no clue of where he was or what he was doing, that is the best way to put it. Anyways, no one came out of the episode unscathed- the druggie twin hung himself from the ceiling by means of the tan Alligator leather belt he’d purchased at the vintage store. The other one refused to attend his funeral. Here, I’ll skip some details but I have to mention that he came out of it stronger while our protagonist was torn between the dead and the alive, the victim and the unforgiving, the guilty and the betrayed.
She’d done well on her APs and SATs making it possible for her to attend one of them Ivy league schools without paying a fortune. The girl was talented I’ll tell you that. She only packed two suitcases for college. She carefully folded and arranged all her clothes to make the most out of the space. It was when she was in the middle of folding a bath towel that it occurred to her- certain feelings were much heavier than love. College was five hours away from her mother’s house and nine from her father’s. She maintained her stability by keeping family at a distance. Everyone says she did the right thing. Maybe. Maybe not.
You are above
Inside, he
was in a world of hurt. He saw black flashes before his eyes. He saw himself falling through the air. He knew what he was turning into. He was turning into the worst kind of human on the planet: an old bitter dork. Saw himself at the Game Room, picking through the miniatures for the rest of his life. He didn’t want this future but he couldn’t see how it could be avoided, couldn’t figure his way out of it.
I think the word is crisis but every time I open my eyes all I see is meltdown. This was when he threw students out of his class for breathing, when he would tell his mother to fuck off, when he couldn’t write a word, when he went into his tio’s closet and put the Colt up to his temple, when he thought about the train bridge. The days he lay in bed and thought about his mother fixing him his plate the rest of his life, what he’d heard her say to his tio the other day when she thought he wasn’t around, I don’t care, I’m happy he’s here.
Land of the Lost. 1992-1995.
The Dark Age. Page 268.
