1:40PM in our demilitarized portion of living
across of course
from a golf course
The wolves revolve
What insipid shit
gets contrived in the outliersThe International Monetary Fund
won’t quit playing games with my heartMaggot Therapy
a decent title
for something but
where to put itI’m hardly a grass fed species
and once
distraught
I tossed the salad of a friend
who cared no more
for the way in which I’d hurt him
than he did for the art in which I’d no choice
but to participateFucking strange
happenings
Sitting here at the table
of a soon to be brother-in-law
making certain his six y/o daughter doesn’t die
for at least four hours
as we occupy ourselves
in our own silly waysResponsibility
Fucking strangeOn this table is a math problem
The homework of a fifteen y/o
who has just had a shoplifting case
dropped
in North Carolina Juvenile Court
Congrats to her
I’ve never understood maths
Never intend to understand
how to go on in such daylight
y=a(x-int1)(x-int2)
y=a
is to me
a shitty piece
of conceptual writingJenny says it’s all in the process
Then we agree
It’s all in the headWe’re each in a process
of becoming The six y/o is doing a headstand
has been for hours
Talking to herself
about beverages
There but for
she keeps on sayingLast night on the phone with my mom
I listed the ways
in which the Catholic church
evicted the child
right out of a self
who was frightened
of asteroids
Mainly
their immediacy
y=a(x-7)(x-1)
Why
does Y always got to equal AIt’s not my responsibility to respond
Flushing may occur
just as anything may occurA life so heavy
is not recommended for tissue so delicate
but here I sit
beside a novel
Don’t Try To Find Me
it’s called and appears
to be about a daughter and mother
who keep secrets from each other and more devastatingly
says the book jacket
from themselves
I am tired
of so much devastationy=10/9(x-7)(x-1)
whatever that means
at least Y doesn’t equal A this time
unless A
is the solution
I’ll never know
A crumpled up note on the table
which I’ve now made not crumpled
because the preview was appealing
reads Sophocles says:
Don’t sleep with your mom
It’s either a poem
or notes for some honors class
Whatever Sophocles said
I’ve never known
Cattulus maybe
Another mistake entirely
I remember
when what filled my days was qualified
by some form of meritLike
you are this or that
because you did
or you didn’tGoddamn
Now I just sit in front of a screen
for eight or nine hours a day
simply to be told
things are important
when things are not important
for $13.26 an hour I pretend to care
All forms of work are a form of pretendingLabor
skilled or unskilled
paid or unpaid
like right now
unskilled
and unpaid
Grapefruit
is listed in all caps
as a contraindication of this medicine
for the cock
which I’ve stolen
off my friend’s kitchen counterI figure any drugs
left on a kitchen counter
are fair game
and that he’d understand
the nature of this experimentwhich might be
what makes us friendsAn acceleration begins to manifest
by which I mean
watch out
for moving trains in this kind of centuryEllen’ll be here soon
For her I’m grateful
Not to spurt holy
all over your chest
all over your burning bush
I’m feeling a little savedFor all the hospitals in which I’ve stayed
One look out a widow
would make a differenceis a sentence
thought of
while looking out a windowIt could be the rain
but windows allow me to imagine
I’m in London
Maybe
I’m still in the hospital
but shit
at least I’m in London and o my
How I’ve experienced
a decrease in motor skills
Exclamations
are rare
I like them
as though one does a lamb burger
Questionably microbial
I open to the first page
of a book containing the blurb
Chillingly plausible
I laugh
Inside and read a line
I’d kill
for a
what
in response
It’s been concluded Ellen will not be here soon or ever again
Inside her head she’s adopted the schedule of Anna WintourThe fashion world is not OZ
The fashion world is the shakes
and cleaning the toilet with the shakes
I remain grateful but unholy
as whatever you think unholyTonight a friend asked me if I knew any good reads about Sophocles
I’ve another friend in high school who’s been banned from Belk
She’ll sum up Sophocles with a ukulele performanceI think all of this and I say none
Tonight there is cause for retreat
About the job market yet another friend said
The outlook is bleak
I agree
on all fronts
Next month I’ll be in Florida for a holy union
and to tell my psychiatrist the ideation sits around
as though it’s a bill I don’t intend to pay
until threatened
with disconnection of service
If this is to be about family
then it must also by default
be about achingI say to the six y/o
when she selects for me which character I’ll be
while playing twenty twenty five minutes rounds
of Super Smash BrothersShe laughs as if she understood
all that about aching
With a couple of stuffed animals we make noises
I say yip yip spit spit yoshi yoshi woop woopWhat I say in this context
Doesn’t matter for shitwoop woop
I aim to become more proletariat by the day
I miss
I mean no living becomes earned
Just waking up should accompany a stipend
Leaving for wine now
Leaving this open
for other creatures to scrawl their opinions
Forgotten dolls make way for forgotten everything otherwise
If Bowser isn’t the oldest
but has a bunch of children
who are you to say the children are not olderHow do you know
Now theorizing
with a six y/owoop woop
I’ve taken to reading the supposed classics
Littering
your childhood bedroom
which is also your current bedroom
with bottles
Woke at 2:13AM
Frightened
of where the bay had gone
I wonder
whether I could successfully hang myself
with the entirety of this curling ribbon
Don’t worry
Not that you would worry
but don’t worry
It’s simply a question
of logistics a question
of practicality a question
of ridding oneself a question
of redundanciesToo much asparagus
Too little pissToo languid a lifestyle
Too petty a theftI’m no associate
or adjunct
or operator
I can however
crash four wheelers
into such winding of vines
In the parking lot of the LEGOLAND HOTEL
I assembled the LEGO helicopter
It didn’t fly as far as we’d planned
You slept the whole way back
We didn’t fly
as far as I’d planned
I’ve been a terrible friend
not meeting the new edition to the famBeing in your new house
now makes me feel myself
such an amputee
I haven’t cum in a couple of weeks
Don’t want to accidently have a baby with a fleaDocumentation from FASTMED
States I’ve postpartum depression
Remember
We used to buy food
We used to buy food
You’d nap
while I cooked the foodFor one I bought the Valentine’s special for two
The cats did the napping I was out of Morton’sso tears it was
There won’t ever be anyone to talk to about individualized decline
No bog is too
but O yeah they so are
Once
confused and cut
by what I claimed was a dog
everyone knew
was imaginary
I receivedTHE LOWEST GRADE IN THE CLASS
I attempted to argue
that grades and what both I
as student
and Erik
as teacher
were attempting to do mattered
none at all
on the scale of global materialism suffering harvesting you choose
a verb or noun and shove it inside the throatI offered to discuss
this crisis of faith
he called it
over a drink
a beer I said
but Erik who’d not simply given such a low grade
but had made a point
to declare he’d done so
as fact as if by
commandment
declined
Only coffee for me these days
he said
and maybe
that was the reason
he felt compelled to inform another person
how shitty they were doing
in comparison to their peers
despite operating
inside totally inconsequential bubble
and maybe
it was a reason
I decided to exit
My bones
screaming
you peopleYou’re not at all as fun as I’d thought
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones