read poems
before jumping
out of an 8 story
window

Now, post office.

Its my first sickness since mum died.
I’m trying to talk about it.
trying to show how OK I am.
unwilling to meet people’s eyes.

I micro-dose
happiness.

The weekend gone by-
so much trailing,
hiking and tailing.
Walking talking stalking sitting.
pitting witting fitting and meeting

Not enough eating, too much drinking.
I drank fifteen beers waiting for Mitch.
Son of a bitch, never showed.

I called, said
:”how are you”,
he said
:”bad, i’m just about to break up with my girlfriend”,

I said i’d wait.
waiting at bird watchers society. A great bar in the hidden side streets of Melbourne. I chatted and sat.
Carl was there, so was Jaz.
We talked spirituality.
we talked emotions and all that goes unsaid.
I took some photos and went to his.
We spoke of the end of Chinese new year.
I raided Jon’s room.

Succinct as I will ever be, Jaz and I visited the Lucky Coq,
then onwards to Revolver. We danced and walked around, slept on a chair and drank too much beer.
I was feeling great.
The wall was furry, I thought of the people that died there a few months before.

my lips are dry.
My stomach tries to eat me whole.
turning inside out. I cringe, but push through.
The DJ is from Berlin and is communicating with everyone on a magical level.

we left, trying to by Mandarins to throw in the Ocean.
To celebrate, commemorate, demonstrate the end
of Chinese new years.

Jaz went to buy a banana, me a fruit salad
I stopped us there, at the counter, coming to;
as if from a coma. A mess of thought at 6am.
We went back to hers and passed out.
I used her housemates toothbrush as I showered the next morning
as I have always done. A bacterial wreck.
Clean on the surface, but trying myself in a time of cleanliness.

The next day, we walked for breakfast.
We talked deeply, she cried and cried. I was strong and happy and honest.
She’s OK. She will return home this year. I think that’s right.
She’s an amazing young woman.
Capable, driven. Afraid like us all.
She bought breakfast, I recycled the line “good friends, good accounts”.
She wouldn’t take my money. But I promised her dinner that night.
I walked home bare foot.

Phone flat.
Saw Keone, saw Jules. The boys were out at the races.
I walked bare foot, shirtless.
I got a splinter.
I found 2 pens on the ground and a tennis ball.
I walked to Jon’s.

I sat; having just missed him.
At mango, and bananas. Drank tea and thought over the day’s happenings.
Strange I thought.
Quietly hungover- speaking confidently, controlledly, at Carl’s Girl.
She was nice. Pretty, and considerate with her contributions towards communication. I sat in the yard, shirt off. Scorned by the sun and the night’s antics.
I rode home, I charged my phone.
I went out for dinner.
Asian curry a beer, RNB music with beautiful young things, sweat sweat sweat.
Then to a cafe, I had a coffee+tonic.
Put a rug around me. Fell in love with the wait-staff.
Went to lucky coq, danced.
Voss had a stomach ache, Courtney had a headache.
Relationship demonstrative
demonstration. I cringed at their wooden socializing.
Whitewashed attempts at fun.
Their resigned approach to life and golden years,
seeing things together. Not trying to be shit,
but being safe. So safe.
We did tequila shots.
Doubles.
double doubles.
Then pints of beer.
Jaz got me drunk, we chatted, we sat above everyone else.
smoked a cigarette I bummed of a pretty girl infront of us.
We were chatty, chummy.
I said I appreciated her and Sol.
That I loved them. That they were normal together as they were apart.
They had good hearts, and brilliant minds.
I loved them both.
We spoke of lots of things, sometimes her eyes would glaze.

That night she’d ask me if I knew her last name.
I said yes; but i’d forgotten.
I told her my middle name. jack.
She didn’t ask for a story, though I had one.
A sad and happy story from my childhood. Real and wonderful,
like gambling we moved on and my side was forgotten.
P-R-I-T-C-H-A-R-D? I spelt?
“Not quite”, but i’d remembered so it was OK.
How hilarious my mind goes.

Actually this wasn’t what happened that night.
I went home and saw the boys on the couch-
after the bar, and she went home.
The cab driver was a racist creep I thought.
Jaz said he was OK.
“he called me one of ‘his girls'”.
I was wholly uncomfortable with the thought.

The next night was St Kilda fest.
I managed to see not one show.
But Shaggy Dog, Izzy and Penny. All of whom I love dearly.
Microdosing happiness.
Jaw clenched. Eyes wide, unbuttoned, torn with nothing planned.
with low expectations, strolling we walked and put ourselves en mass.

Watching all the people pass, we went to the bathroom.
Seeing a juggler I knew. Ryan, the Canadian
Scotsman, chiseled performer,
sweating from the night before; hair undone and dark eyed.
I gave five and walked to meet others.

We spoke and I played the fool.
I cut through the shit of tiredness with talks of honest sex.
When interrupted I explained my spectrum, wondering over coins,
silver and one gold, “how much will this get me”
a fistful and two fiftys.
“Half a beer he said”,
that’s great! I said.
“check mate”, I said.

he looked surprised, the negotiation was done. So unhinged was I.
The crowd was wild. He was wide eyed.
“no, no, no, let me pay”, I cracked.
“don’t make me out the bad guy”.

He was true to his word. We all laughed
and he tipped me two fiftys for my performance.
I looked penny right in the eyes.
We spoke of the new year, and extended invitations.
People left, she stayed.
I like her, her nose isn’t symmetrical. Her eyes are kind.
her mother’s name is Pam. I like her hair, the way she clucks over cigarettes. Her eyebrows and complexion.

We’re in Coles.
smouldering will come later, at the good ideal Nazi camera man.
(who she knew, but chance but it was me that grabbed him)..
Jaz put a feather in my dropped Mandarin.
Penny throws a Mandarin over her head and i’m not looking because i’ve gone cross-eyed trying to entertain the women with a story about my own sister-
heart wrenching with beauty.
The redorange Mandarin from the USA with one sticker on it
slops onto the shiney floor.
linoleum? plastic, lino!
LINO is short for that.
looks like marble or something. It shines.
I hear the slap, we all laugh.
I didn’t catch it. (I AM ALL TALK).

Penny buys potato gems and pretends she’d pregnant.
We get photos taaken.
the guy was someone that was looking for a house.
i tell his stunning girlfriend to come closer.
The world is strange.
I tell Jaz I will kill the man or woman that puts the stickers on fruit.
its getting dark.
The oraange sun is setting.
She puts a feather in my mandarin. (it looks like someone has clipped it *just so*, hipsters perhaps).
Jaz speaks of aerodynamism.
I laugh at her genius.
“I’ll hit the moon” remembering the story of the man that trick the trolls of his strength in the Dragon Book, that I read as a child.
The reference is strictly personal in its depth and is halfway missed but the shallow image is there.
I could have done better if it wasn’t for all that self importance.
Penny is done and i’m laughing and peeling off the sticker and putting it on the wall.

We walk arm in arm.
A beautiful girl on each arm, laughing chewing gum.
I complain about women’s pockets.
I speak a thankyou to penny for buying Mandarins.
I call her Money Penny-
which I thought was the smartest words out of my mouth.
they are only ordinarily impressed.
I’m cold with calculations, links and circles.
Jaz and I had talked about how I could be a comedian.

I say they commit suicide alot. ALOT ALOT.
They suffer.
I’m not funny.
I worry. I think of how my mother will never see me perform.
She always wanted that.
I always wanted that, but never did.
I’m beautiful. Should be a model. So raw, reductive and wrong.
Always so wrong.
She’ll never be proud. I’ll never have done enough right by her.
She’s gone now. She died suddenly I tell everyone to show my strength.
I say “I have more good days than bad days”
“I’ve been laying low”, “avoiding groups”, “shared pain is a suffering halved”, “Its a proccess”, “a real burden”, “I’m blessed to be so far ahead of everyone else”, “Nobody knows what it’s like”, “it is what it is”, “it happens”, “we’ll all need to come to terms with death”, “all children grow up to see with parents die that’s normal”.
So recyclable.
I burnt a spider in the kitchen with an old match.
Jon said they were animal friendly.
I said I was an animal.
Unrelated words.

I’m so sick, but I can still write.
In bed. Tissues up my nose, top lip on fire.
Light me up like a candle I tell Rhi.
Happy Birthday, sorry you didn’t tell me.
Grow old without me; everyone.
I’ll hold the fort up. We all used to play forts,
now its just me and these crumbling walls.
All isn’t apples. Nobody is smart, and getting a girls phone number isn’t a success. neither is sex with a backpacked, nor giving a homeless person your lucky coins. We’re all decomposing at the same rate.
And the spider went ‘tssssssssss’.
Maybe it died. maybe not. I hope it did.
I hope it was and hope it wasn’t a reincarnation of someone that loved people.
Coming into the house, listening to people talk. Watch and scream its silent nervous systems shuddering like a car about to stall at the lights.

Uphill struggled today, sun and effort.
Loud talking of the Canadian girl.
A jog, clear nose and sweat of too much of all vices.
Dead spider legs; it could be me.
Upturned over eggs and salad.
-thankyou brother, banana.

You’ve got to eat something more than Banananinas.
I sipped my tea and watched my phone charge.
All those numbers, all those people to contact.
Suffer and fuck with. All mine, all support.
Hands to catch my clenched jaw when I throw it at a sharp edge.
eyes closed. The darkness surrounding me, never surrendering to the softness.
Like a cannonball, teeth splintering thoughts.
Daggers of bone turned sideways as hands of flesh catch me softly.
putting me down, and overclothed marshmellow.
No sack, or balls.
just a quiet suffering of love and support.
As I supposedly sit there silent and thoughtless.
The spider in me died, as I sat at Ryan’s cafe.
Celebrating and talking of simple things.
Like putting coffee in Vodka.
The girl looked like a mannequin.
The boy a viking. The other a fat and lovely little thing with no ideas to hand that she would share. Curious eyes they all had. many many.
And Jaz sat patient.

But no longer, as we walked arm in arm to the beach.
Talking James Bond! Comedy! Email address names.
It was all happening.
My shirt was a mess, shorts torn, hair everywhere,
jaw wild. Knots in my heart and head.
Cold sweat and a succinctness of total honesty and love for both these women.

Dave Hughes was there.
His dog that looked like Tin-Tin’s “Snowy”.
His eyes reflecting the setting sun with pits in the mid-rind.
Not blind to my state.
“we’re crazy”, I said. “Join us”.
No?
“well I appreciate your work”.

And that was that, we strolled on. Boots filled with sand, we jumped upon the pier and
stroll-ll-ll-ed.
Me in the middle.

A wonderful thing.
My heart bursting with coincidence and excitement.

He joined us, we noticed him coming around.
Walking down.
He joined us.

pegging Penny’s Mandarin.
I watched his figure. A man of strength.
A man with black holes, pits to the pip of his soul.
but a learned orange. A tiger within.
A guardian of volatile energy.
Dave was strong, he joined us.
We loved him for it.
His bright eyes.
He was a shepherd that festival.
On the outskirts.
Deep and dark, glinting with the sun.
Wondering with the ocean.
Watching us, himself, joining in the witless youth
embracing an action of insignificance and dire entertainment.
Significance and hope.

Jaz spoke of competition,
i shunned the thought as hollow but felt a need to remedy for my love of the situation.
I asked them to kiss the mandarin.
First penny, then me, the Jaz, then me again.
Feather jutting, I dropped the Mandarin in the vast pool below
that washed at, into and away from the jetty.
whitewash waves cresting, laughter at the simplicity of success and madness.

It was a focus, that I walked away from sadly.
Having not soaked up my surroundings nearly enough.
The festival raged on,
as did the ocean.
I was above it.
Thinking of the diamonds.
The orange emeralds in each persons eyes.
Imperfect each one of us. But the links made for more than just ‘the perfect orange’. I believe our actions set sail, all the way back to the USA.
Perhaps it will be cause for change.
I don’t want a bullish handshake.
The girls and I have enough avoiding landmarks.
Each girl was a gem.
Beautiful I think.
Wholesome and giddy with the wind that whipped our hairs into wildness.
Actions and purpose to only be tarnished,
retold and forgotten.
But we lived.
We lived we live we lived.
Met people. Loved.
Kissed
an orange mandarin.
Saw the pits of a cynical gaze turn skeptic and then join us.

We caused ripples.
resisted waves, where swept in our minds the death of Mercutio.
winds did not pick our love for pricking.
Instead we said and sailed back to our sea.
see people.

And so my low expectations won the day again.
Hugged my lovers, avoided commitments to any bullish thing.
Shindig sharking, humours and huggies and other things.
Working hard. Swiftly you could say.
orange hair of Andy, watching people,
talking of masturbation, mess, drones, and human nature.
Ass-hole guy so many say.
Cut off, when he spoke. Easy to anger.
Overlooked. Postured wrong. On the spectrum,
but finally I cracked him.

“what were they waiting for? 10pm huggie time”.
hilarious I thought.
That shows me how you were raised.
And so I hugged everyone as they left.
AFIA was the girl that I cracked.
She had expectations, so I wondered, and wandered.
and finally she said “WHAT ARE WE DOING! WHERE ARE WE GOING”
I smiled my gremlin smile.
-I knew it would be you.
-Laughing

Tomorrow i’m not doing anything. So I don’t have to do anything.
what about you? I asked what you wanted to do and you said you didn’t mind.
So we’re doing what I do.
does that explain? You fucking moron, addition, edition.
Repetition. Confusion.
groups and failed discussion.
singular thought, simple without lacing,
without tact, without knife, fork, or an array of spoons.

Take me home for tea if you please.
I wish I called.
I washed instead, talked and massaged and wondered.
Not alone, but not with anyone.
Not for a time anyway.
Not then,
-not really.