A green so bright
it surely must be sticky sweet.

Little chalky marbles amougst shards of broken glass.

Japenese Soda in undulating bottles.

Smiling spheres.

Throats filled with honey and dew and melon.

In the shadow of the railroad tracks.





....I was in a mood to count my losses.

Madeline’s Trip to China



It would not have been so bleak had it been dry. Though, nor so sleek. It would not have been so bad at all, really, had it not been damp. But it was: long and sleek, damp and bleak.
Madeline looked down at her little pink feet. The tunnel stretched out so far in front of them, that it was nearly impossible to believe that she was not at the very mouth of the thing. She was one hundred footsteps in. Well, give or take. She had several times strayed from her counting, lost track, forgotten, added numbers at random.
It was taking a very long time to get to China. A very long time to pass through the center of the earth. And she suspected that there was still much, much farther to go, as she had heard that the center of the earth was molten and orange, and the tunnel had not been getting any warmer.
Madeline wiggled her little pink toes.
Barefoot had been a bad decision.
But how happy they would be to see her, how surprised! Immediately, they would abandon their colleagues, and forget about the concept of a business trip. They would scoop her up and fit their fingers into her curls. Then they would take her out into the streets, and there would be paper lanterns and kiosks that sold glistening fish meat. Somewhere, there would be a big thicket of bamboo. She would hang a paper lantern from one thick green stalk, and sit in its quiet pool of light, eating her fish with her fingers.
Then, it would surely be worth the walk.
In the meantime, however, it was a very long tunnel for such little pink feet.
Madeline began counting again. Numbers marched from her little pink lips one by one, two by two, and finally, three by three.

Deep amber wax freckled with soot. Then silence, then smoke. Twining, rising ribbons of smoke like a deadman's tresses. The gentle, warm smell of beeswax: honey and embers. Brimming pink lungs. Uncomforterable-but oh, how sweet!

I could tell you a story.
I could tell you a story that you already know.
I could give away the ending.
Then the ending would be different.
Just because I told you.
You'd have time to change it then.

I could wake up every night because I am on the verge of tears
Because my throat is closing up like it does when you are crying really hard.
I could wake up from dreams of your own betrayal and of salt water dragging me down and the world all warm and empty.
I could.
I know this because it's what I have been doing lately.

But also,

I could read Swedish picture books about bright yellow sleds and little swedish boys with bright yellow heads.
And I could sit under our christmas tree where it smells like twine and treesap, and where the lights are only festive fireflies.
And I could tell myself stories there, where it's safe and green.
And I could change the endings.
Just for myself.

And that's easier, anyway.

I love you.

By the way.

Hiding doesn't work, by the way. You just get hollow.

So don't try it.

There is a movie called ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES. I am dead serious. It is completely unbareable. At one point, these luminescent pale girls in bright bakinis are flailing around in the mirky water screaming franticly, their faces blotchy and their mouthes wide. Screaming, screaming, screaming. It's not even very convincing. That's not the bad part, though. I haven't gotten there yet. The bad part is also not even the underwater shots of long white limbs kicking slowly through the currents as eyrie Jaws-esque music plays. No, the bad part is that they are screaming because perfectly ordinary, smallish red tomatoes are bobbing along innocuosly in the water next to them.
And the worst part is that it's not even funny. It sounds halarious in the abstract, but it isn't, it's just completely painful. It's like watching lemmings commit suicide.

That feeling like you're underwater. That feeling like everyone you talk to is just the murmur at the other end of a conch shell. That feeling like you are drifting. The saltiness of your tongue. The thickness of everything. Being that far away. Being that drowsy. Hearing mermaids distantly, ignoreing them and going back to sleep.
Being ill.
Hiding.
Dreaming. Dreaming some solidness and suriety into being. Then waking up, your throat all full and scratchy, and coughing, coughing, coughing until a blend of whiskey and lemon and honey appeares on the table beside you, which you cannot drink but which you try to, anyway.
Darkness. Drawn curtains.
Solitude, then lonliness.

And suddenly six days have been spent. Six days have been spent, alone, at the bottom of the ocean.

Today's the day the teddy bears have there picnic....

Actually, todays the day you tremble when you stand and later you drink mint simple syrup and your hands seem slower than normal, sluggish, and if you stop to think about it you really can't remember what the 'Z' key is between. You don't know. Your fingers know. Your body knows, your mind doesn't. Today's the day you're two seperate entitys or your bones are just facilities.

You aren't necassarily quite like yourself, today.

You're willing to read all the email scams today.
You're willing to count your fingers.
And you haven't done the laundry in so long, that now that it's cold, you find yourself tugging sock puppets with floppy ears and button eyes onto your purple toes and you know you are doing something drasticly immoral but you're doing it anyway.

Haha. Just kidding. Psyche. I love you, guys.

I find it touching that your initials spell your postal code.
And that you cover your mouth when you smile.
And walk up the down elevator.
And own gleaming red shoes tall enough for an executive.
And swallow your watermelon seeds because someone told you a tree would sprout.

But I don't care.

Yesterday there was sunlight and Keuroack and bannana soda and everything was perfect.
And everything was so beautiful, and everyone.


Mandy with dreadlocks that don't quite suit her, and ocean colored eyes that glitter under blonde-brown brows. The cashier with the wild wiry copper hair and the most indulgent smile. The student at the mall, his sketchbook as big as the table, drawing something in scarlet and mustard for his art class with hands and feet instead of heads. There is too much gel in his hair but his eyes are clean and bright and his eyebrows sleak and Luan compliments his picture and I ask him: "Why here? It's the least artistic or even just desirable setting I can possibly imagine..."

And he tells us that he used to draw in class a lot, and now it's such a curse; even at home with the music on isn't quite enough. I tell him I like to write in the cocophny of resturaunts. But here? Everything is hotel colors, stale air, and bitter security guards. Go somewhere else, we think to say when we've already left; go to java house for once. Everyone is always talking, and the names of various drinks clutter the air and spoons hit glass hit icecubes.

Yeah.