'sometimes it's hard to sleep' she replied.
and thousands of miles away he decided that he would spend every hour she was awake thinking about her. hoping for some telepathic miracle. every morning reading the spilt coffee grounds for news of his distantly tired love. every afternoon sending bottles filled with babies breath and chamomile tea out to sea. every night chewing the morning coffee grounds to match her anti-sleeping patterns.
but on an ocean of oil and ink, she still couldn't sleep. and he still couldn't dream of her.

14 months at sea with lifetimes to go. constant staring contests with the horizon leave irises bleached and dreams lucid. 3 chipped mugs full of spiced oriental firewater a day. 16 trunks full of 43% clothes and 57% moths. 5 blank paged books. except for the 1 sentence.
'dark is filled with card games with ghosts and light with coffee ground messages and whale toothed smiles.'
turn every bone in your body around. don't look back. eventually the ship will disintegrate due to high percentages or salt in the water.
then.
you can stop.

distillery towers go up and you run away. dew settles and rust puddles. the sun goes down and is chased up by tire yard rooster calls.
34% of a lifetime later. the alcohol has rusted through the towers north and northwest framework. you chase after the one you ran away from.
should you stay .in. the stolen shopping cart the crippled fire escape the mattress surrounded by studio lights the blood stained bus the plague filled 5th story room.
the problem is/was/will be.
'you never understood love'

radio ghost records float through the dusty air. black lace and empty cigarette holders are washed away in contraband whiskey rivers. pupil-less eyes run up walls made of dirt and glitter. thousand toothed mouths light matches with one smile.
faded choruses sing.
turquoise feathers melt.
electric smoke settles.
the phonographic telephone rings.
'when are you coming for me?" and echo on line twenty three said.
then. a city wide black out and a dial tone.

7996 km away. separate hands grew from small to large. blue eyes thought about of green eyes.
10 518 975.3 minutes later blues eyes looked at green eyes. ukulele strings and tea cups. rabbit dreams and fox tails.
within 5 063.2511 hours there was going and coming. blood and bare skin. smiles and bite marks. traps and chases.
75% of a year after that. sense memory and knife fight scars. green eyes looked at blue eyes.
.the love existed in the past present future.

water filled air and floating deserts. the 2am rooster crows and you walk home with an armful of dead magnolias and decks of cards. at 4.49am elongated fingers pull the 3 of hearts. the moon deflates but the sun doesn't come up.
'you're in all of my nightmares and all of my dreams'.

'no matter what. wherever we are. i will always be only 72 hours away from you'
he said to closed eyes and shed skin and bared boned hands. dust dripped out of the kitchen sink and he left.
3/4ths of a year later. between dueling pistol smoke and mouthfuls of swamp water. open eyes blinded by the southern sun engaged in a 192 hour staring contest. old love letters were burned in one corner of the room and new ones written in the other.
'i never meant to hurt you' she said as he forgave all of her lies.

again.
storm cloud dyed eyes stare out into the electric landscape. linear sea monsters shake and convulse up the walls, ripping down old newspapers stuck there by 98% humidity. on this 58 degree summer day. she dreams the reality of you. all bones and blood, jugular veins and marrow.or something else. 12% tea leaves and dirt. 50% empty bullet shells. 33% old pages of poetry books. 5% celluloid.
'i can't wait any longer'.
writing out the lighting and thunder on 1/2 of the right side of a typewriter. in tangerine ink and paper the color of dust. hands scarred in a million different ways crush and uncrush the empty pages. spreading ink once again up the walls and cementing in the monsters.
'i know'.

it is.

'i don't love you anymore'
written across the floor in spilled ink and snakeskin whiskey. seeping through the skin/eyes/fingertips and soaking through the carpet. that's just all there is to it.
'goddamn i am tired' she said.
enter the vulture-eyed salesman walking east. 23% of him looks through you. the other 77% blows away with the wind. sitting in a room littered with. blank sheets of paper. cups of coffee grounds. old newspapers.rustednails.cigaretteashesinkcoveredglovesloosehairdisaintegratedmattress and filled. with the sound. of. scratching. radio. waves.
'it's you fault' he says.

is it.

orange sun streams through the window blinds. the pencil breaks and thats the end of the paragraph. strike a match and pour another spoonful of green medicine/poison over a sugar cube into a tea cup and into/down the throat. the orange turns red turns purple turns blue turns black turns blackandblue. move into the kitchen room and sit in the reupholstered armchair and sit in the black and blue world. listening to the eight footed foot steps of your 312 other roommates. listen to the scratch squeak of the inside wall neighbors. it's times like these that.
'make me glad to be alive" he said.

something inside. wanted to get out. or back in.
hiding numbers and forgetting numbers. "who are you anymore?" i asked/typed/recorded.
in between the radio silence there was: 2 broken glasses, 4.5 bottles of rusted wine, 3 tons of ripped upholstery, 1 book of parasitology, and 53 hours of emotional disorientation/deliberation/revelation.
and then. one word answers. with a variation of 3 to 4 punctuation's.
whoareyouanymore?

"here we are"
she thought sitting in a room covered with fabric. the window only open a crack. the music only just humming through the walls. burnt out cigarettes and half empty syringes of caffeine and year old newspapers.
that was the down spiral.
this was the way up.
hands shaking and tapping. tap tapping at letters. writing invisible notes on invisible sheets of paper. teeth shine. mouths move. eyes blink and not blink. opened bottles and golden hearts. crawling out the window and down the rusted ladder he said.
"there you are"

control yourself.
electronic dance music pulses through the telephone wires and the glass is half full of rusted wine.
half manufactured eyes perk up while the caffeine does what it was born to do.
black kitten teeth chew on gold chains and rabbit fur.
sink into the air and out onto the street.

consistency: screaming. pushing. yelling. ripping. biting. side glances against walls in the corner on the bathroom sink. hair pulling scratching staringsharptoothedsmilingblackeyesredveinssmokefilledbedroomswithinkontheskiniloveherwillyoukissmelaughandsingedhairburntskinwateragainsttwofaces back bones and rib cages fingers on the back of necks. walking. running. listening through walls. watching. mouths. move. and. faces. spin.

wake up to copper cowboy songs filtering under the door. limbs wrapped together in electrical cords and guitar strings. mind wrapped in foggy memories and the bottles all empty and broken. flash back to the middle of the night.
"i'm in a constant state. .of emotional distress" he said. mouths moved and water fell through/out of the pipes.
the longer you are gone the less i remember about you. the more the mouths move with no sounds coming out. the louder the background music goes and the faster the grounds and the ceiling switch places.
"i know what you mean"
contradictions. black eyes and bite marks.
"just put your arm around me" he said.

standing still. in the middle of the carousel. faces. legs. bottles. arms. in the incredibly loud spinning freak show orgy of everyone you know and don't know. and you.
7 hours later. there is the black and the black and white. dust in the sheets. the crackling radio. spilt coffee. bruised ribcages.
a half a year ago. there were eyes moving closer. in the present. there are hands pushing and hands pulling.
youtakecaregottagoiloveyouhaveabeautifulday.
words written in melting ink. letters kept inside empty novels. phantom postcards from places that will never exist. because you will never be good enough.
and so.
you still. stand still. in the middle of the carousel.

'i didn't mean to scare you'
but it's too late and visions of blimps crashing to the ground and dogs raining from the sky and that little jump in your ribs when you realize it's all about to end and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it are already floating through my dreams.
'move over i can't breath'
they said to the cat and the boy and the second cat at 4.30 am. 3 hours later you fall asleep. 2 hours after that you are on your 6th cup of coffee with 2 more to go. waste not.
another lightbulb dies out and the mood lighting is complete. it only took 1.5 years.
'where have you been, my dear'
want not.