TEXT
King of old time, walks along a crowded road. No one listens to his scream. The yellow lips flailing. Shouting all around the corners, King yells on the ground. Moves past water, roars go on and on. He sees nothing. Red glowing eyes see him, talking in a corner to a wall . His friend. Only the eyes saw a hand laying nearby. Took the hand away. By taking the hand away. Had a laugh. King was left again. Flailing shouting, roaring. He left his comfortable wall; hand had gone. He went to the crowded streets.The groups were shining now. Feet stepping fastly over puddles stepping fastly over king.
It was a fall, to it again. Something was said to the king, for him to be around the roses. To fall down as he was. To his knees on the ground again. Some things were too bright to be taken, to be home. Home was inside. Father of the King,could not speak. He could only stare and could only walk. To be the father of King you must be silent. Quiet, as he was. Nothing was talked about the roses grew dead, something was said to King. That day, some few lies,
Daytime trouble, the wet pillows made him very sad. He was told that no one was really there; they where only as king saw them, in his head. King saw his father disappear. King saw everything.
It is only what had been here.
Everything go. He danced now. Leaving the walls, homes, streets. Small beats and certain sounds filled his ears with the king noises. The dance around radio. The hand was holding onto something else, maybe the roses. He would try to return now. Be the one that was okay the king was alright. He would see nothing. He was aloud, he was good. Nothing could be left behind the king behind the king. His coat ripped down while rain moved across buildings. King went to sit inside, desks covered in mud. Boots scattered. No yelling he was told. He left the school house. He would only dance. “Badly” said father. While he was gone, hand would protect others, it grew old. Everything would look smooth, clean, raw. Bright. When things were bright it was good king liked it when he could not see. When things where too bright.
The king held his hands up. The outside lights, he liked. Sunshine for the old man, scratches held along windows, he walked past with the bag of books now. The lights where only bright outside the buildings not in empty roads or by long fences, covering hills. King moved away from the lights. It was dark. It was blue. He could see the yellow in some spaces
King had grown up , King was here for the second time now. He was there on the side of the street looking out at the stepping shoes he always noticed and he told us not to notice but he lost it. While he was older now king would stand there and look at the shoes, repeating everything over and over , again and again. it came on channel two there was news footage all fuzzy and static you could hear the reporters voice mentioning kings refusals to leave that street, one step to the left would kill him one step forward he would fall, one step backwards he could trip or be beaten, the ground would shock his back and he would surely parish, one step to the right and king would never be able to go back. so he remained in the same step he took when he was looking across the street at the shoes, at the walking, noticing, pretending not to notice, telling others they must not do as he does. being like this left king feeling alone. but he continued to stand there. Four days later the tv turned on again, channel two had a glamorous display, the reporter attempted to then question king, for he still did not move one inch.
“what does king do with all his time?”
“how does king exist like this?”
“what makes king stay so still?”
With all these questions king only replied, with “I am King, i do not know, i am just this, this takes over and sometimes it is not me and other times it is. Right now I am just here. hello.”
The reporter looked to the camera, her eyes glazed over with confused pictures, her mouth drew open to say something but she had not replied. so she only repeated herself.
“what does king do with all his time?”
“how does king exist like this?”
“what makes king stay so still?”
King looked across the street as he would and replied. “King does not like most people; he only understands them. Watching from this one step is good. it lets me be. It lets me, King, feel to watch them, in their moments and steps,wishing King could be this free and roam as others do. They hop over street cracks and small broken glass and empty bags and candy wrappers and they walk over little bottle caps and left over flowers. they walk past me so many times in the same spot, the same people with the same looks. It lets me be here. It lets me be.”
King looked again out across the street, so much to let him be standing right there. The TV reporter noticed that king began to breathe deeply, his chest opening and then falling back down, sinking almost to the dirt that dripped underneath the concrete palace. She looked at the camera and motioned to what king was looking at. She got up and left.
King remained, he knew that there would be none left and that was of his only interest. King wanted so badly to be these people walking around him day and night; he wanted so much to be them; he wanted to understand and not only watch but feel. As king grew older there was something that grew inside of him, something that he found terrible and in the same moments exciting.
Exciting for what king could not do, he could not see the people in the ways he wished to be; he just saw them for what they are; this made king very very strange; he wanted to be more sure.
While king was stuck on the street, across from where he stood there was a mother and her little children all holding hands crossing streets, king was not upset by the display of love and affection, he was only confused. Everyone was very comfortable it worried him a little. How to be so comfortable and tame
“What made them this way, so comfortable and tame?” king said out loud.
He repeated it to himself thinking an answer would fall out his mouth but nothing had chosen his fate. It was nothing short of a little story king had wanted to tell everyone, questioning their judgements and their looks he wanted everyone to answer in their own ways what had made them so what they are. If it made since it would be left behind and not only there for king to see in the steps in the swaying. He was studying as he stood on that street, stuck. He was studying to understand the freeness that folded around the corners of the steps and the puddles and the little flowers peaking off the sides of drains and empty little milk cartons wanting to be picked up and thrown away . but they are stepped past and nothing could be done until days past and the cartons look as though they have been melted. Why did they let them get like this, all the trash over days and days would wash away. Nothing more to speak about. Only the close pages he thought about to see them go go go.
Pages of books and similar writings to get them all out, his thoughts
King thought he had no one to wish him happy birthday in such fun ways as the walking shoes did, with their many friends and little parties of true enjoyment, king remained behind all to only watch it was how he was and could not change , no one would approach king in uplifting ways,
“Why was everyone so scared “
He questioned the air and waved his hands up. There was no answer, king felt people were scared of him. They were opening up these little boxes over and over to see some more television and more people yelling at the tops of their lungs or others more confused about being left and right and up.
King grew up. He began to feel that the same days were all around him, he grew to only have one day where he could advance his walks to more than around a corner or after lunch time. Only one day for king, but he was king he was alright he deserved more than one day people would say to him, but he never felt as though he got a break ever.
No breaks only walks that would grab and scratch his body, walks where breaks and standing here stuck meant more than a break it was a homage to the lying
King felt in the morning that he could not listen , king could not be there for the ones who were always around he would try and try, but even the others could not be around for king in the way he had. King wished and hoped for something no one else could understand. All the king wanted was to be in this moment of pure understanding and not otherwise he wanted to be there with the other and be nowhere else but he is not there he is stuck looking across a street at these strangers and things. The things connected to the strangers I was asking about double digits and answers to games but did not understand it was another moment where king could not be uplifted by he street watching feelings, he was in love with this consideration that maybe if he watched hard enough and felt harder he would be enough for the strangers to come one day and question him it was not fair for him to dismiss this,
He had grown up in this, he had left the street side and he was now following around someone new
King had a friend he aspired to be a friend just like him with the same sorts of hands and rough tinted edges that had been left visible, because their desire had become something material. King used to not have such friends until they began to work together from far off cities but it still helped King understand what he wanted to continue to do or be. After months of silence, King met his friend at a bar, crowded with small figures whose noises left mouths dry. The shadowed hallway placed itself upright in the battle field for small drinks; booze and feathered looks through glimpses between shoulders and open jackets passing by the next one. The place was lit with red lights that soaked eyes; to be encapsulated; caught up by the whole lighting sphere , King immediately got distracted by the visual chaos that enveloped his gaze , through the characters and one was talking to him now. King noticed her white hair and diamond eyes; young , and her hands held wrinkled frowns as she grasped to a beer. Kings friend was among the most important people in this day and it never aided him wrong, he only pouted about as the rockstar peasant he had become. Only knowing the true secrets that someone had not yet understood about his dances. He wanted more to just be this rockstar face of some lit up line of this or hide the expectation through the young minds eye for a glamorous featureless aesthetic.
“While the young people only fantasize so much about us because they do not fantasize over anything else but the next dawn of a new look. They have not found Jesus or themselves so they throw that old age look about into the leather jacket-ed fools who are nothing more than disgusted by themselves. Having to take a picture, a picture , a picture. Glamorized by that small untitled feeling is nothing but frustration and hopelessness I see in their faces. Girls with no bodies and boys with no fathers. I can not help you but this is how it is.”
Kings friend was saying to the blonde that was on the edge of her seat in desperation that he was not speaking of her but of all those other ones around the lights and at the shows. King could sense a trail of fear in most of the people that would talk to his friend that night. A fear that they were seen through or spoken of. It was left to the palm tree hills, left to chance.
This made King think a lot about how it was for certain, his friend had talked about him.
While once off the roads
I saw a very strange sectioning off of a road, which was not often moved around , when I looked at it. i do love to see some man be inside a book. he was nervously awaiting for a tall offering to this anxious playground of the chairs outside, closer to roads then the kitchen, sweat dripped off of most applicants to the drinks and everyone was graceful about it, but could not be of course more or less, there had been a group of three women across the room, they had been all happy the entire movement, pink dress and frilled up hair sandals and eyeing the hamburgers brought to some fifty year old baseball hat sitting next , he shoved food in his mouth awaiting nothing more than this next bite and when it is turned off i am nothing less than him , wanting to devour something as fast as possible guzzling beer and grasping for last fries surrounding pickles and lettuce. Waiters mindlessly prance from one room to the next. He waved his hand up and lifted the cream from below his seat. Familiar junctions, done before, another embarrassing thing to think about forcing oneself to be distracted and see nothing in the outside fronts other than there is that , that was left over, now since the past few minutes he had changed his hat , sipping the tea and cream fully , pen dangling between fingers, could not be still.
Whilst King was on the street again he sat and listened to two older ladies talk. They were discussing the shots and numbers related to the doctor clipboard files and computer hospital frauds. There was far to much to say, each was thinking. Compared to the next to the next. One had frizzy hair and her wrinkles folded along her cheeks and among her pink glasses; eyes flew up to speak exclusively of the timely stress of her experiences. The others eyes were hung down low onto the ground and once more she flew into her gaze that fell onto the other. Who continued to talk and talk. Medicines which one, numbers how many.
“I have too too, call the doctors they are all here to see you next week, call the poisoned headache moved to the back of the line didn't it go that way last time. You know what you want.”
The frizzy hair stood up and frowned, now alongside the cracked ground and the other womens small dog she held tightly too as if it were something, not an animal. King began to melt into his metal seat from the cafe wallside outside the corner. His stomach turned and clung to last nights thrown up substances while the bathroom floor knew them better. It was not how he imagined dinner but once the levels grew louder he had no control and let liquid fall out his mouth. The coffee did not help; he only grew shakier, legs trembling and King looked over to the other table once more. The two were now both standing, talking, this Friday felt loose of what time was considered to be once a grounded perspective King had indulged in. But while he grows older there is this unspoken intensity that was once pronounced to the train he had. Oh to have been taken off the files on the computers w here king had begun to understand. It was not that of which he was allowed to understand it was that of which he alone had only exclusively decided to understand. Once it was that way in his head he was no longer in control. He had once decided it had to be enough, but when was that one only time he had thought about it being enough. And in some ways it had been enough.
King began to then think about how the enough was sooner or later nothing; nothing would be enough and it continued on. The old ladies had left the corner while king got distracted by these thoughts and now the close encounters forwardly consumed his mind. Briefly understanding the take over he checked his seat. Only him. Sometimes King had wished from time to time that some other would appear in front of him as if he was waiting for someone; then there they were right in front across the table, or street, or through the windows, and curtains, and doors. He checked in dreams for these moments too but always just him in someones skin, he was always waiting for these someones to appear.
King sat there in the metal seat and now two others where placed in the grounds of the old ladies, a sister and brother waiting for sandwiches and coffees and speaking of flower clips and.
“She's soft and controlled once more it was not for us but she left him as if it were sadly some pop star bright light forbidding these moths all around her face once it was not for him it was for the control he did not have, you know it was always as if there was something sort of wrong.” Leaning over the whole table as if whispering but clearly loudly speaking to the whole street corner, he sipped the coffee just placed in front of them. She turned around and looked at King. Then down to her coat that was draped off the seat to grab and pinch at her pockets. She reached down far far for something, pulling out a large red wallet. She looked back at king again.
King got up.
“Order, order, order.”
The court had announced once it was broken off the side streets and he had left. Banging banging wooden mallets left ringing in his ears. It was not for him to be around that courthouse he saw the screen with the number in the far left corner, he got up again. Wooden, worn out this was hell for the eyes and senses. He had not given up. The judges fists were right above his head as if he were some type of monkey yelling for more fruits and yelling he did. It was quiet, suddenly clear and the room was lit with striking frightened bodies. King could then look out behind him. Once all the suits and old faces sat down among themselves. Now they had all been placed out on the wooden stools and all together pointing. Hands raised quietly. Outraged. It was curtains and then it was doors and then it was windows, and then it was the other one once it was that and then he had nothing around him, judge left down the dreadful daring outside step.
“Order, order, order.”
He got up again, the metal seat backed behind him. He went to stand in front of the two siblings, eating their breakfast now. He walked up stepping on cracks and leaning more towards the wall then he could understand. King stopped in front of that table and wished upon the metal construction that they both sat on that it would fall as he had wanted to see. But he just stood up looking at the two eat. Melted cheeses and breads and these were all falling out their months once he reached to shake their hands.
Mouths open, King left the street corner.
King then thought of himself as some fool, some head swollen addict of the attention unwanted after the effects, it had his mind in rackets of a court left onto the pasted childs atmospheric idea ; that once they had made it so far, the both of them,
He was now in bed a rotted little thing; his skin was picked off in chunks of desperate ice hardened onto poles of opposite forgiveness.
King thought he should practice thinking normally towards the forgiven to the extent that there is no one left around the pint of beers and extended holidays in
What was normal
“Order order order”
What are of the friends of mine it is the friends of mine
King had now left on his way to the Queens brick palace bored with crates of nothing and crates of nothing. Little plastic bread tabs left in piles of bags that she would collect and disappear into, these bags where nothing as king saw them they where trash. Filled with more trash. And once king had arrived the doors were slightly more closed then other times, Queen had begun to become paranoid and closed them even more. King still walked up the steps to see the dreams, onced cried about now it had to be.
Confused by touch and something that has only been in dreams for so long and it had made so much sense. King could now feel his muscles fall off his chest he could feel things that have been for awhile grow in him. He could feel that once there was his own starvation it was now plates and baskets and now he was standing near where the queen wept herself away in the torturous.
She said have a good morning and ocne in awhile King had to feel as thought this while was the longest one. When it had come and tehre was nothing else it was coffee and it was scared there was nothing to be afraid of
Once to walk away from me he said it was not anything less than his suit of parades and closed off
All king had wanted was too feel as thought he had a good body to restore the feelings
I want to be alive, i want nothing more than funny, he caught my eye and there was nothing left for me to do.
While king had gone out to meet other people there was not any more close following left on the horse backs
Buzzing outside the insect windows, closed frowns are prancing outside to be stupid and fulfill another round of eyes looking at each other while pretending to not understand what there is. What there is outside the windows, the machines grew to buzz louder, turning above the roof. insect animals crept off their caged wire homes and lept out their doors to see more of what was out there for them. Once about the cold night air there was not a single breath to be seen, only sour little hands left on porches for the milk man to grab in mornings or on the late night clean ups. This night was like any other to him; he was only carrying the cartons so far this time. Then he would turn around, leaving the route that pressed on. Why would he leave and then not come back it was unknown and he did not mind that there was only this that was left for him. He would have buckets of hands
Hands all around once there was you and you asked some beautiful questions i do not understand your ideas but you are so beautiful to me you are so so beautiful to me and i do not understand anything you say most of the time i really really love you some how you are so kind and not like any one i have evr met before but there is another little piece to the puzzle of this little
He looks so interested
Do the same thing i do not understand what has happened to me there is this only to be around that only to see you be so so beautiful and understanding to that being around me and untelling of that the bits are not around you mouth you tell me that they are pressed into your heat how you have been left and misunderstood to be around that self and not around that business there are other incredible bits of you that i do understand thst are not enough but once you spll out to me you will eb divine in that littel moment of spiling you will be aroundmy face and eyes
I feel as though i enchant people around that fact rather than around the forced truth of who i am i am more so evil than more so alive it is not alright it is unfortunate
Let’s say if u return it
Joe no sorry sorry
Let’s say if I return it lll get half my money back is that how this works
No no
What’s the other way so I would I have to do it daily then or ?
So basically like
I’ll figure it out
I can just go down to that location and talk to someone
What are they open till?
So it’s actually in there
And
I could go to the airport ?
Skins crawling days dawing
Saying all the things you think are bad
Covering the doors, a faint watered dew, the cold metal pressed against my palm as I opened it. I sat in the waiting room, the office women slowly moved behind the wall in front, passing papers and thoughts and filing peoples experiences. I think I remembered just then that I would always have ended up there and nothing could make me forget. The closet behind the tables creaked. The elevator doors opened and a tall, rural, gloomy man shoved his way through the lobby as if there were some few people in front of him. The lobby was empty and dry. He walked up to the counter where a woman was chewing up typing away at a computer, someone behind her picked up the phone. He waved his arm up, it was a second before the woman could tell who she was looking at. The man's head was hanging down towards his faded hoodie that might have been black or blue at some point, now covered in tinges of gray and white spots.
She looked up, “What can we do for you today Erik?” the woman sounded insincere but having the sort of tired drown feeling going through her throat; she had said this many times before.
“I need to see my father today. I need a ride back home.” He began to look up.
“We can provide you a bus ticket, or arrange someone to come and get you, what sounds better?”
“I need to have a ride back home.”
“Ok Erik, I will call and see who is available to take you home, it will be just a few minutes before I can get a hold of someone. You go wait in that chair over there.” She went back to look at the computers that surrounded her little corner and said nothing else, Erik seemed to not have heard her. He was just standing where he had been the whole time she was talking to him. As if he could have been stuck. The woman looked up at him and sighed quietly to herself.
“You go sit and wait.” She said again. Erik did not go and sit to wait for the next words to be said to him, he turned his head and pushed open the door to walk across the parking lot. He walked past all the shiny cars filed on the gravel, his heavy pants dragged on the wet ground and he went to wave his hands on the other side of the street.
I looked down on my lap and saw the papers were still on the wooden clipboard, the pen hanging from the side on a string. I went to put on my sunglasses. Obscured types of bright lamps and ceiling lights filled my eyes with shadows. My head hurt. I went to write on the papers, my name, birth date, insurance, everything they could want to discover and know before knowing why. A waste of paper, I thought.
Another door opened, I hadn't noticed it before. It was a tall pale door with a metal handle like most, but one of those doors with a rectangular gated window placed on the right side. Only there for you to just be able to see enough of what might be behind it. From different angles you could see it led to a tall concrete set of stairs, that from where I was sitting didn't seem to end, they only went up to the towers. Who walked out of this door was a group of three doctors, they were rushed, laughing, talking loudly about these people and that medication. They wore bright light green types of uniforms. Matted with badges and glasses, stepping accordingly on the ground and leaving to go talk outside by someone's car. Seeming to have nothing left to do at 10 am.
I looked back at the half filled out papers, I wrote more and walked back to hand them to the women at the computer. She smiled at me.
“Someone will be out to get you very soon,” she took my papers and looked through them. I went to sit down in the same chair near the gated door. The chair was uncomfortable and plastic, there were potted plants at the front corners of the room that needed water and posters along the yellow walls. They all were convinced that everything would be okay, no matter what. A security guard walked out the elevator. Wearing a bulky outfit and darked shaded glasses, stepping roughly, he looked younger than he seemed though, almost hidden. He went up to the door of the office and said to the floating women just typing away, “I'm off my ten,” he closed the door and turned to go outside. For a brief moment before he went to stand and watch he smiled at me, moved his beanie back and went to open the door.
While he was outside he stood and watched the parking lot and questioned anyone he pleased. Morning gray mist began to fade and after a few minutes of being in the cold he reached in his pocket. He pulled out a book to read, leaning against a pole which was placed along the front of the building.
Inside it was warmer than I had expected, I wanted to stand outside and wait for someone to talk to me there. Faint fast paced footsteps followed around the corner of the lobby.
I turned my head slightly, a man dressed in almost all black walked up toward the office. He talked to the office women for a moment and then turned around. He stood more straight than anyone I had seen as if his back was glued to the air behind it. He was tall and bony, wearing rounded square like glasses, covering the gray circles under his blue faded eyes. His cheeks were caved in, he looked distant. This tired middle aged dull sort of man looked directly at me. As the women in the office were still talking to him.
His eyes changed for a second as if they were given childish life, his mouth creased and smiled the smallest amount it could. I noticed it all the same though, would he be the one to talk with me.
His black sneakers dragged along the grounds as he stepped forward.
He called my name and I stood up, there wasn't much else to talk about yet and this was a wasted type of new to hopefully be a good feeling. He opened the heavy doors that were down the lit up hallway from the lobby. He was breathing heavily.
He told me his name is a sort of shaky manner, then, “Nice to meet you,” I walked through the doors which only led to another drab hallway. The same as the last, except there were doors on the sides of the walls. If I really concentrated I could believe there were already people filled up in each room, behind the dull door windows. All talking and growing louder. But it was so silent. Not a single sound, besides my loud shoes that had refused to be quiet.
“Room 102 to the right of you,” the man waved his hand in front of me to show the only room with its door open, to reveal that it had been empty, and I could see a plastic chair waiting inside. I remained quiet, I only stood, I was confused. And then walked into the room.
It was all white, with yellow tints like the rest of the building. Nothing was allowed to exist in here, only some types of feelings that might be discussed then and now and maybe tomorrow by new people and places and it all meshed together and was pressed into the walls of the room. The very back wall was lined and covered with tall windows. From the top of the ceiling to the bottom, showing shadows of the plants and trees in front of the building along with people walking and stepping out of their cars. This room had a tall square table pushed into a corner with a small amount of pamphlets and papers, crowded by a single box of tissues and a telephone. There was a chair next to the table and one in front of the daunting windows.
He sat down and so did I. The air filled up the room and tension built and flooded my spine with sentences and other situations.
I was only here to talk to another person, any other person, it was incredibly hard these days to talk or relate to any single person or thing, and I felt uneasy all the time now. I wanted to tell this doctor or office worker type all of my secrets and run till others would turn their heads.
Turn their heads while holding deep feared glances, moving their sunglasses down from their eyes to the tips of their noses to look and see. Dropping their bags, opening doors and windows, running street lights and doing nothing else but staring. To see the evil pressed in me. It was a long dry road to the doctors in bright green suits, who wouldn't notice but be paid to think that they do. I was in this room though, I had to say something as the seconds passed. The shadowed man cleared his throat and looked at the clipboard I once had, he held the pen and looked over the papers.
“Do you know your medical insurance information?”
“I don't have it memorized, the woman at the desk said it should be okay,” I lied to him. He changed the way he was sitting and stood up straight again, in that way. I wondered what could make a man sit like that, or was he forced to? Was someone making him like this? Ties and ropes dug into his back and he began to raise his hands. Sort of looking for a reason to speak.
“What could we do for you today?” I stood up directly and fancied another out, another way to leave.
I decided to then sit and talk to him about a few different issues I had or maybe used to when I was young, about the burning houses. It was hard, it was as if my hands had given out and my blood fell from my head to fingertips. It felt funny to talk about all of these things, and when he finished and told me to take the interview and move forward to speak to another one of those green doctors and the psychiatric pills and medicines, I felt flushed. He grabbed the clipboard again, filed my notes into a hidden pocketbook. Opening the door to the hallway, then to the lobby. The security guard was still leaning up against the pole reading, the woman behind the desk was typing. Everything remained the same, the lights felt brighter though. The doctor man went to hand the clipboard off again, then gave me his card. It was bright, flashy, sort of with a new age feel. Why was this his card?
The office woman went to look at her computer and then she looked over to me. She handed over another card with an appointment date written fastly for when I should return to speak to another doctor type. Does it have to be so difficult? Too many things to do for one outcome. I was just as tired and gone as before, maybe even more so now.
I went home. I went to go to my bed, it was late and dark out now; another cold, hard stumbling night was outside my window. Just like all the nights who had presented themselves to me. Every night blackness lay outside. It was so dark, you could almost sense the objects all around the house. There would be faint car mumbleings in all directions because you were in a small city. People would walk by your window on occasion. Only just then would they walk with pure leisure from all that had been going on. They would move slowly and freely to their homes; opening their doors then looking out their windows as one did after a hard day's work had closed. After all these thoughts had disappeared I was awake. Bright morning made my eyes peel open, for it felt like my brain and mouth had always been hanging out. All dry and scratchy. I hated waking up in the morning.
I always pretended to be interested in what was going on in the world then but the truth was , to me, some things would never serve certain advances not made for us, people. It was difficult to grasp the world sometimes, those doctors didn't understand either. People would tell me again and again that I should go find someone to speak to. But it only seemed to let other things seep out, it trickled down my back and left my body. It was never a good thing. That’s why I sit here in this office now, about to shoot his entire investment capital placed upon this building only built by poor old night-walkers with yellow hats. If they didn’t build it no one would have; who were these capital men anyways. But only the money and yellow green smiles all around. I began to hate their smiles all the same. I placed my suitcase on the ground of the office where a receptionist table was set, across the table where the doors to the capital men. The long rectangular windows let the light shine through the entrance placing stripes all along the furniture that passed men and future we’re going to sit and wait there doom. The receptionist waved at me as she looked at my face for something. I could not tell, it was as if she had something in her mouth that couldn’t get out.
After I walked outside of the building, I felt a sort of full feeling enter. I would move past the jaded jail building, there were orange stupid men hiding in there. They would be cold and complain. I remembered when the suits were yellow and the times were more sympathetic and true. I remembered being one of them ther
e so many years ago. In Yellow, and then fastly taping up my eyes. To of course make sure not to see everything all at once. Only through a hole deep in the brick. Then I began to think of eyes.
I would be in the front of where the old grocery store had been and she would take me to, all those younger years ago. When I was small she was rebellion wrapped up with those covered taped eyes too. We would sit in the car, hearing those old songs and noises, floating through the air, she never liked the quiet.
Sometimes I would realize that I hated her just because of how much alike we acted. She would say things all the time in observational ways, “ Those birds look like they’re in an airport.” Pointing to the flock of small wild birds, their bodies blasted along the rippled water. And she was all the time right, they did seem to look like they were in an airport. They were waiting for something, hopping here and there. And we were alike that way, the way you would be like around someone that was hurt. Hurt so very badly, you only wanted to become the good parts that you had missed so much. The parts she could not be anymore. As if she was back in the crowded kitchen throwing spices into pots and moving around the house slowly. Instead of trying to move fast. But only in some moments would you be sparked into a true self, the one I was left to become, but hated. The parts I knew you had but could not be avoided in me. A mother is a deep wrong I had always had, the other wrongs could be righted but not this one. It was held up to me from a young age, signs and glances were all around me at times, and I grew paralyzed with thoughts and feelings I wanted back again. She was paralyzed, her brain all torn in different spots, her mouth all flooded so she could only shout. We were young, it was wrong, it was messy. This grocery store made me think of these things, with her.
The wind picked up beneath my feet, filling my shoes and faded jeans with cold air that pressed along my legs. I left where the old grocery store had been; it was now a spa or massage parlor type. Everything has slowed down this time of day, I thought I better go on my way back home before I freeze. I had done good business that day, I thought. Maybe if I was fortunate enough I could get a job with those capital men, and be a part of all the fun. I couldn’t bear to become a night-walker, just like the ones who would crowd the streets near my house at night or middle of the day. Working so hard to build something so big and not even get one chance to enter. Merely spotted by the big men, the capital men. I would never be like that though, I thought. I would be the nice and reliable one. Or perhaps just silent. It all began to feel the same, it was the issue. Maybe a problem that could be righted, I thought. But some people are only pushed to be wronged. Shoved into corners to look around, peering through hidden doors and opened surgical rooms. It was all left open, and most of us fell. Going home I was struck down with a thought I should stop
by —
“ Hey!” Someone had said to me just outside of my vision he was across the street I realized. A short man, seated on the edge of the sidewalk.
“Weren’t you on the TV. On the news maybe.”
I was walked over toward him now. He stood up, questioning eyes, they really did look into mine. I have never seen so much expression in an old man’s face. He really couldn't tell what was the truth, I hadn’t remembered. He was standing across from me. Looking up at the buildings above us.
Something had changed now, it was as if the air began to turn in a circle and his eyes became wide and looked all around. Everything closed in. I began to remember things now. Couldn't really even begin to understand in any way what was going on in this dreary world, small and repetitive. The same air filled my lungs when I breathed, although each time I began to feel a little worse. As though maybe, perhaps this city would take me away one day.
Sitting there looking periodically at the time on the clock hanging just above the cash register. The smell of burnt bread and biscuits filled the air. Stone floors were being mopped and a server was jumping around to each table to make sure customers were content with today's specials and all that. I looked at the clock again. Unsatisfied.
“Whatcha thinking about, look sorta stressed.” said a familiar voice in front of me. I looked up, it was a server at the cafe, the nice one, I thought.
“Oh I'm alright thanks,” I just went back to looking at the paper. And then checking the clock again. I was feeling more nervous as the minutes passed, just thinking about a lot of things, all the time, everyday. Even when I was little, I would be looking around, looking outside windows. I remember looking into mom's dresser and trying to understand who she was, she would never talk to me like she used to. She only muttered under her breath, about how things used to be. Before we were in the world. And it would be alright the times before, it was alright. Things were never alright now, I could never understand how things could be so alright in the past and continually get worse in the future. As if someone had planned that for them. For things to get worse and worse. And spin while laughing and dancing at you. She would yell and scream in the living room about all these terrible unbelievable things that were passed down between us. Things that maybe weren’t real even, it was difficult to tell sometimes, it made me upset, it made me not want to walk anymore. As if I was her, she would lay down for hours. At the end of this black cloudy hallway where the walls had disease and the bathroom would rot. Where we were forced to be, because of things that would never stop. Only because of the doctors and their way of thinking they noticed the right things. But they did not.
To her, this was life now, sitting and watching time go by, flying through past moments and last nights only. She would look out windows and into eyes as if they were the first possible thing she had seen in her life. People would think she was shocked all the time or maybe scared. I would only recognize this once, that these things we would see on some occasions were not real or normal even. I had only told my sister, when we were younger, about these feelings. She was not like me; she was normal and sweet, kind to talk to, and smiled with her teeth. I never thought I was normal, not even once.
“People must think I am so weird,” I said to her one day, when we were eleven swimming in our grandparents' light blue chlorine pool on a spring break. Back then we would talk more, she’d always listen to me talk. She knew it wouldn't last.
“No one thinks youre weird or gross or stupid or even wrong. Most people don't think. They don't smell the horrible chlorine from the pool water, they just see the beautiful crystal clear blue. And that makes them smile.”
Nothing is special
It could begin with a phone call of whispers that have been placed in all the little spiral machines. He woke up and was frightened. She was cold and almost falling off the bed now. The room felt quiet. The white colors meshed with the gray on the walls, faint beeping and medical noises pierced my ears for the first time. The footsteps of old men and small children walked by and nothing felt more wrong. The little beds with wires where covered by thin loose curtains, there was one in front of me. I moved it. Nothing was holding all the bright lights from shadowing her face, everything was there, i could see it all. Her hair had a wet sense to it, as if she had run many miles to land in this small bed pushed up by bars. She began to notice someone was in her very small corner of the hospital-like room, unable to move her head; she just huffed in a cold silence. At the bottom of the bed there were boxes it seems, alone next to her was the tall machine that had wires attached to things. I walked closer so she might see me now. And I saw her fully, lit up, golden and frail. We have both never once been the same. When I turned to look at her, her eyes were so big and filled up. There was a scratchy fear in them, like they were itching to understand what had happened. Then after a minute of me standing over her, I could see the realization flood through, and her eyes were cold with white horror. Quiet tears went down her cheeks, she tried to speak. Barely lifting her cold hand to put over mine, her hand was ice and her small fingers weren't able to move. They laid there on top of mine.
It then turned into something different as a truck drove by the window behind all the machines. Making the room grow a bit darker, hiding all the new daylight that made faces glow, and made it easier to talk, it was only silence though.
A DREAM
Only the early morning would make these chickens flock and dance around their shed of warmth. The cold wood was painted in a dark red color years and years ago. Me and my brother would go out every morning and feed them. We didn’t like too, or want to, but they needed us and I suppose that is nice, while pecking away at the greens and small creatures that flew about with their bright eyes.
Only this early morning the air was so dry it was even hard to step outside of our particular house in the fields, surrounded by all these waves of corn and big tall green stocks that would begin to, on occasion, become your every thought. We had always lived in these fields, it was quiet, and family would come visit. Not much anymore, and I always wondered why. It was a tall, wooden place filled with nothing else but our life, built by some great grandfather or old man, it was a beautiful shade of white that became invisible if the sun was shining just the right way. It was invisible in that sort of way, there was an even amount of windows and chairs and tables and all that. The back door led to where the chicken house is,along with a small garden that has been tried and run over and over. All around the house, in all directions there were fields. And a dirt road that at some point would go to a town, or another house just like ours.
Once the chickens were fed my brother closed up the gate. I was only looking towards the closest one of our fields, which happened to be the one with the most corn. The wind was picking up making the dry dust swirl, it was one of those things, that would be more of something from far away. The golden dust was taking its swirls around my brother. He was laughing, mornings here were odd at times, no one could tell why.
I looked over toward the field again, my father had put a scarecrow in the middle of it last fall and it was still standing there I thought, although, when I really began to look I saw a pale arm waving itself forward out of the green, I saw a pair of legs running, along with a head of black hair, messy, and I realized it was a woman running towards us.
How odd. She was a tall sort, wearing a red shirt and black dress pants. I couldn’t quite make out her face because she was far away from us. My brother ran inside laughing from the wind. I waited, I waited to see what this woman had looked like, she got closer, her face seemed wrong, it was very upset, I had in fact never seen someone so upset before. As if she was inhuman, her nose was all scrunched into different ways, her eyes all large and moving in and out of her head. Her mouth was hanging open as if she was saying many things, it remained salient. She was most terrifying,as I saw her move closer, I noticed she wasn’t running, her legs would grow larger with the steps and her arms were taken with the wind. Flying about her head. She was behind the chicken house almost when I decided to run inside. I was walking up the crooked steps to the back door when I heard a noise, sounds filled my ears with shreeks and yells of pain.
This woman was on the ground folded, moving around, scratching at the grass and leaves, yells climbed out of her throat. She was murmuring to herself for quite some time until I heard her say.
“My daughter, where is she,” this woman was yelling, crying, her hands went up and then she stood. She was standing and leaning in a certain type of way. She looked at me, her eyes were normal now, so normal, they where blue and puffy from crying. She her face smiled, wide, her crooked teeth where bear and the sun washed away at her face, she was on only a few feet away from me, dancing up the steps, tossing the flowers in her hair and hands, there was dirt on her face, hiding the pure freckles on her cheeks. I was in the back kitchen, the pots and pans would hang right above the oven and lights were in corners along with a small table in the middle to prepare things on. The woman was now at the door way. It was almost as if she had pushed me into the house.
“Shhhhh haha hmmmhp,” she began to make these noises.
Wooden Room
167 Madison Ave.
From the outside it only looked like a deli store or Italian front type restaurant. Quaint but concerned. I stood there in front of the place for a minute, really just looking at all the yellow and blueish sorts of colors that touched around the building. The windows had been shaded by white curtains. I was walking there to talk about the meal he had served Mr.Loui. There were lots of small town chefs and then there were the big budget rooms only filled with tables to play up your desire for anything they could cook you. This was not one of those, but it was small and condensed.I began to grow more curious as to why Loui would go to a place like this. The unconventionality.
Loui had been a critic and a writer for the news and other magazines before he had found a love for cooking. He was a name throughout the loud sort of upbeat flowy parties with the most high class people. Mr. Loui had it good and everyone knew. Every businessman had tried a bite of the tasteful bouquets he would make. Holding a high place in the simplistic way of cooking, for his food was glowing and their well developed recipes became common knowledge to anyone in the food scene. I walked in.
I could say that I’m in this tight old wooden building where I heard from Birdie about this new up-and-coming someone from probably nowhere made Loui a meal. This place was filled with young and beautiful people, smiling, you know, as if all the nights would continue being just as loudly strong and unknowingly right as this one. The kids liked this place. I began to understand. The way the lights were placed and how the pictures were hung up. All nights were the same to the men feeding the plates; opening windows to the new people who would walk through the door every hour or so. The new couples, old friends, new friends. The people I was waiting behind, to be seated on a date. Maybe holding hands or just wanting to feel closer than usual. They were laughing as the waiter began to lead their wide faces away to a far corner in the restaurant. I stepped forward and the waiter asked how many and I just told him I was only there to talk to the head chef. The waiter glanced at the clock and then back to me. He then said I would need to order a meal and wait till they were out of the night's rushs. Then the head chef could have enough time to speak to me.
I followed the waiter to a small table placed in the middle of the whole nightly event. I ordered a few appetizers and waited until it was around eight; not much time to kill, I thought to myself. I looked around. Writing about these types of places made the job easier. Everything began to mesh together, all restaurants were playing the same sort of game. The walls were covered in funny browned wallpaper. All the wood trim along the tall windows were painted a yellow color, more bright than you would expect. There were lots of small square tables; and wooden chairs to follow. Along the bar were tall red stools placed in front of a white brightly lit kitchen window behind the nightly drinks. Figures could be seen behind this window, frying the food and garnishing the dishes. Only seen as shadowed types, never fully. Waving exaggerated hands, rushing about yelling foggy kitchen words: this was their love. Steam began to fill up the kitchen, someone turned up the heat. I wondered if my food would come soon, as most people did.
Servers were all dressed in a compelling dark blue type uniform. Coming around every corner carrying a surprisingly well arranged display of decorative cocktails and gleaming white plates of picked desires. Some dishes being served were small plates of assorted vegetables layered under grilled meat or fish. Other dishes were pastas covered in sauces with nuts or grilled spiced tomatoes set on top. There was a small menu of desserts only consisting of a few ice creams and cakes, cherries and whipped cream on top. Common sorts of food, this was their food, simple, fine, and nothing lavish or hidden away. There were a variety of colorful thick soups served in golden trim sea glass bowls as well. Warm fresh crisp bread came along with every meal. When my second appetizer arrived, which had been the night's special: a crunchy tossed strawberry salad with various cuts of lettuce, spinach and sprouts. Then covered in dripping pine nut sauce and topped with smoked cheese bits. I was brought a menu of wines. I hadn’t drank in years but contemplated the realness that would come with a bloody shiny glass of wine in my hand, all I could want was this.
Most people sitting around their tables would simply wait and wait till their food had arrived to their hungry mouths in silence. A few would gladly talk wildly about pop-culture or American politics. These young people knew less and less, it always interested me though. How their spirits would only seem to rise. I began to see all the evenings people move about and settle in just to watch them become uncomfortable enough to leave. Again and again. Most left all at once, it grew empty in the restaurant.
A bus boy filled my glass and gave me a quiet smile, he turned to the window and turned off the neon open sign. Then the boy stepped out of the building and walked down the street. I lost track of where he went because he was almost running, fading away, smaller and smaller until nothing was all around him and I could no longer see his white button up shirt from blocks away. He’s left the restaurant. A few people walk out of the kitchen to leave for the night. Homes, apartments and things hidden all the way in the back of a closet or kitchen cabinet; needing to find it. They don’t know how long things last anymore. They leave here most nights as they do and go home. A few minutes after the doors were closed and everything became too quiet, someone approached me.
1984762
Waiting phone calls drips liquid eyes mismatch. They are colored white and dance on the tops of concrete walls and little caves, in front, behind the creatures who play death and make that rough sound. Lists, and i am waiting for a phone call, a look back. Seeing the leather pants small spine quickly pass over the crowds and then around the front dancers, there is nothing yet to hide and all the closeness of our touching will be little bugs, you should not love me, you are free, am dirt and rotten skin. There are only waiting phone calls for me, the loud loud screams of outcasted speeches and cold dark drums will always ring. Watch the nice air flood to the dresser, their heads turn and they don’t know what’s better, the golden visual era of mass distraction coated onto the eye lids of those underground bugs. Little bugs will love me, crying out, outside the waiting phone calls do not end and I am parallelized. Drips out bugs from small circles and it only means, waiting on the hill of cold displaced thoughts hopeful and plastic, it is liquid. Eyes are mismatched and the dances do not stop, shoving and falling onto the ground, long keyboards from the blue men whose mouthes are open, breathes are broken and it only means more of these.
Call father, phones ring for him, now wait a minute, robots around the wires. Whole bloody outlets are formed around, fingers hold onto some kind of cellphone light and twitching legs wash over stepping, stepping on us.
1982349
Skin looks blue in certain shadows and the bread is never eaten bones shake but this wall heaven been beaten and the pink paint is lost faded slowly down while a red bus waits across for people.
Hell covers the deep holes of my own eyes. My own is laid before you. There is a killing walk that gives hell. Walk around the corners and you still do wait. I took buses and it was a joke, there where old smells and these tired grey women leaning back and forth and somehow I saw their same eyes it was very nice and warm. Their own hell was burnt up, all set to flames. My own eyes now watched on buses and I held my bag tightly, though I did not have too. Walked past funny buildings you maybe knew and I looked over towards it, the air pushed forth onto my skin, feeding the bodies with a breeze in the stillness that was everyday now. Waiting for another cold breeze but instead it begins to become more still, an hour and a half ride and now I was off. A joke was now on the ground. It was silly and funny and was faint and was some textures that I’d never seen and it was life. I’d never been here, through the glass doors and now all these gleaming pastries coded in sugary glues and timed with fire and sweat were on display. You were there to sell these, I watched the fumbling. You were talking and all these people did not know you. Waited for you to notice, the jokes and smells were worth the tired eyes looking up, an untouched suppress and it was all gone. I waited again for you to be finished and it was nice. While this time of waiting I started to be around these dollhouses, a tall room and I would flash pictures and ask at the old women reading. Told stories of stars and children coming through the doors. Now pushed the door away, small wooden chairs and sets of clown eyes gave us control of those fears. Holding tightly to a notebook who doesn’t look like you anymore and there’s no more questions. Sitting outside your glued down bakery, you look scared. Leaves where falling and others crowded the lined waves of grey with mindless wandering and the bags of pastries along with these funny loud cups filled with sugar and dark things. Shuffling around.
I have been under a burning heat. I did not know, the concrete would heat my skin with splotchy reds and leave sweats I hadn’t known, uncomfortable at all times. Crying wasn’t good, some think, the lone feeling is a growing, becoming. Moving, slowly. Watching through a window while eating another last time hands touching another last and the windows where saying things to me. A women walked by holding her hands out and moving fast. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. A breeze lifted and there was a dancing glow on ur cheeks. Eyes darting back to the old fashioned night. Pockets full of new tickets and plastic passes and clouded the days to stay distracted. Watching.
1987631 x
Woken up by a ragged torture, a wrinkled old women was dancing up in the street. Searching it seemed.
She jumped down and yelled
“Goddamit bus never fucking comes at the right time, always passing me up, always leaving me when I come to the stop, ain’t right, ain’t right.”
She slouched and moved over to the sidewalk, carrying a walker with hanging trinkets and bags of chips. I stayed behind the stop and listened to her cries. I hadn’t spoken to any other that morning and she was the only voice I could hear. There where women running over towards the bus now, wearing big flappy hats. They did not care. The other laughed. The hats just stared around the corner clenching change in their hands holding their small wallet bags and not looking anywhere besides the road.
“hats laughing at me I swear it, goddamnit I’ll sue the bus.” The women said.
The hats where silent, it would be here in five minutes. Closely I watched these figures drip by and also wait. Waiting till we where in the same corner.
Subway seat was warm with sweat and stink, stretches of night rolled around the hot congestion of daylight walkers. School boys and old glasses along with the striped men who where of the business. Through windows , high school kid where slamming fences and in pack’s crowded blind. Large amounts.
A McDonald’s man climbed out of the trash and train tracks slums to greet happily and hop on the eight.
Dropped off for the jobs and the bouncy roadways onto another. Store director, named Wacherman, unseen but the white rooms with us four strangers, signing and agreeing, screams and harden chairs folding onto the tables. The man talking was scared. He was.
Leaving onto the trains back, subway was crowded with legs laying down on bench and up against windows, broken backed junkies crawled and moaned. Some were cleaned up pressed against their backpacks with cold hands and wandering liquid faces. Dried up bodies and influences of childhood hung around their eyes still. Unknowing.
Sitting, one across from me was young. Holding onto a deep can, shiny blues gleamed from it covered by a crumpled up bag. Barely fifteen years hold.
Plastics turns purple and blue in sunlight
There is a straight line from my windows. Two of them, covered by blinds and one standing in front of a brick wall blocking the roads. Noises seep through, rushes and winds make the windows creek and shout. Bed covers made and there is only one sort of empty rush left about. By the busses. I went to gather screens and cold buckets, school was expensive.
Small men run around hitting and chasing the pavement, open to the cars, walking by they all huffed and settled. Entering a store with frames of famed all renting and not understanding the full supplies with some later down an old man moved and walking and found the ones needed.
Standing now.
198790009
He’s attracted to trash likes the way it feels the comforting smells and the orange peels. She dances in her bed flashes pictures and things and he’s attracted to trash rich and in vain see it in his eyes wondering why he liked the way it feels and the comforting sleeps with orange peels. Small men run around hitting and chasing the pavement, open to the cars, walking by they all huffed and settled. Entering a store with frames of famed all renting and not understanding the full supplies with some later down an old man moved and walking and found the ones needed.
1989748
Blue suites more like the blue pants and crisp shirt dance on the corner of the sidewalk they stand on their wheels then dance more around the corner stop, only trucks and bright cars where seen all through the windows and signs and a women looking out with me she is calm. Young monsters hold onto each other while biting their lips, sitting in the back. The middle is best, for seeing everyone all around and the next. Beautiful spindly fingers grasp the window. Another stop and over a highway, all for the cars slipping into the next destination overpasses where seen through the only road they would go on. Aircraft hardware, K Mobil, Fantastic Burgers,Enterprise Car Sales, Wardlow Rd, Joe Auto Center, Botox Fillers Hyperhidrosis,