Kleen

When I retrieved the note for the rubbish bin,
It was almost funny because the word “clean”
Had been spelt with a K and a double E.

The rest of the “To Do” list just made it feel
Really sad.

I’m not going to tell you what the list said.

Mattresses

One particular section. Right now.
That means you’ve missed it.

It summed things up – a history
Almost.

I’m pretty certain that you’ve told lies
To all of your friends, because I’ve been
Counting a ton of different things that
You have said to people when they’ve
Been holding you down by your hair, so
That you’re almost suffocated into
Wishing that oxygen was made from
Mattresses.

Precision

About a month ago, or perhaps
Two when I told my dad that I was
Going to have to go on anti-depressents –
Due in no small part to his constant
Fucked-upness –
He laughed.

It’s more to do with his soul
Dying, I think. Less to do with
Him actually thinking that it’s
A funny thing that I’ve been
Driven the spot where I’ve been
Sitting these last few weeks.

You know the locked groove
On the vinyl version of Sonic Youth’s
EVOL? When Expressway to Yr Skull
Just loops endlessly until you take
The record off the turn table (shit:
You could do it till the needle wares
Away completely – just a thought)
?

Maybe this is like that but less
Joyous. Less about becoming
Inspired/more about being taken
Apart in little grains of sand.

*

nothing to do with senses
nothing to do with seeing
nothing to do with looking
nothing to do with taking in
nothing to do with reaching out

Lamp

Spent the evening
Sitting in what was
Her corner.
It's the one with
The lamp
That's never turned
On anymore,
Like he won't let
Any light
Illuminate her,
Let these memories
Become a blindspot.

Sever

Modify the room.
Find someone else to write about you.
I’m sick of making you feel interesting.
I know that you’ll never let me have what I want.
Those morning conversations;
Set yourself up –
You want to be this mirror that will
Never catch its own reflection.

Today would have been my mother's birthday. This is the first one since she died. I'm not really sure how it's going to feel. It's strange - some days that feel like they might hold a certain resonance or evoke a certain sadness, well, they just don't sometimes; but then others - days that mean nothing, that should feel fairly innocuous, can be hell, pure sadness, empty, lost. So I can't really second guess what today will mean. I guess I'll find out what, if anything, as the hours go by. With the stuff with my father continuing as it has been, I'm dreading it. I don't want to sound selfish, but I wish I was in a position that would allow me to try and deal with my own mourning today.

Yesterday I'd gone for a drink with a friend after work. We were making our way from one place to another when my brother called asking me to get home as quickly as I could because there were problems with my dad again.

When I got home, I found my dad trying to stagger up the stairs to his bed. He'd pissed himself, and he'd shit himself.

After consulting an on call doctor we were told to call an ambulance. When the paramedics turned up they checked out my dad. The short of it was that he'd been drinking all day. He denied this as usual. But it was clear. The ambulance staff said that they had scene the scenario a million times before. Without his consent, which due to his persistent denial they could obtain - they were unable to take his to hospital.

He just wanted to be left alone. They tried and I tried to talk him into going in the ambulance, just to get checked out. He refused, so eventually after a lot of discussion, they had to leave.

Tomorrow I'll need to try and leave work early if I can, and get home before the local doctor's surgery closes, and see if I can make an appointment. My father needs counselling and some sort of bereavement therapy urgently, so we need to be referred. I've tried to get him to a doctor before, but he has refused and at other times simply lied about going to appointments, told me that he had gone and never bothered.

I'm so worn out by all of this. Tomorrow would be my mother's birthday. It will be the first since she died. I need an upswing really soon. I keep trying.

Comeoncomeoncomeontellmewhatyouwannahear

It took you six days
And I was counting.

thinking aloud

There’s something about bigsnake4u’s photo that made me feel a little sick in this way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It almost makes me nervy. Weird. I guess there’s just something very arresting about the look on his face, something tragic, something really sad. It made me feel a little jumpy, which kinda freaked me out, but I guess I’ll have an interesting time trying to work out. There’s a tiny glimpse of someone else in the photo – right at the side, a tiny bit of someone’s flesh, maybe wearing a basket ball top of something. For no reason I can think of, it’s got something really mid-90s about the photo. I get this overriding feeling from the picture of something sincere that didn’t quite make it. I think I might write a little more about it maybe, maybe work something into a poem.

Distortion

A child's eye opened,
A face in the water,
Distorted in the most
natural way.
From now you're just
static, a missed signal,
something for people
to try and remember.

Me as a zombie

My friend Sian is making a zombie film and she needed someone to test out the makeup on. And so:

9 examples from the strange world of fan art*

Hanson



Jay-Z

The Jonas Brothers

Lindsay Lohan

Dani Filth

A.C. Slater from Saved by the Bell

Joey and Chandler

Andy Warhol

Conan O'Brien

*Just a quick explanation for this perhaps incongruous (perhaps not) seeming post: these are some pictures that I was looking at as research for a piece of writing I have been thinking about for a while, that I might, or might not write at some point in the future. It's connected to the slash fiction and Hanson fan fiction posts that I did a while back. Some people might not find it very interesting, which is fine. But as regular readers know, I like to use this places as a scrap book sometimes, so - voila. Take a look at some slightly odd drawings for the day, and let your minds wander.

New ideas 125

- What? What do you mean?
- It’s just a saying – haven’t you heard people say that before?
- Who says it?
- I dunno. People just do.
- It’s crazy – like suicide, right?
- Yeah I guess … but it isn’t actually about that.
- It’s weird that it doesn’t really mean what the words themselves actually mean.
- Yeah. I think that’s like everything though.
- Yeah?
- Yeah. People hardly ever mean the things that they say. They mean things, but it’s like there’s a gap between what they say and that they actually mean.
- Yeah. Do you think that’s why everyone is so fucked up?
- Maybe. It probably has a lot to do with it.
- But I guess there are a million reasons for that.
- Yeah, probably.
- Do you feel fucked up?
- Do you think I’m fucked up?
- I don’t know – you’re not here. I only have pictures in my head to go on. It seems like that’s probably not the right way to do it.
- Have a guess – I don’t mind. I won’t feel like you’re … I dunno … being unfair about me or anything …
- I think I kinda presume that you must be fucked up a little bit. And I know it sounds weird but I think that that’s probably half of the reason why I feel so attracted to you.
- I sometimes think that’s the only reason why people are attracted to me.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Why?
- I can just tell. People assume I’m fucked up. And it makes them want to have me.
- Have people told you that?
- You have.
- I mean other people.
- Not really. Not how you have. Some have said almost the same things. Most of the time I can just tell by the way people act. The things they say to me. How they act around me.

Early to mid-90s alternative rock/indie day!!!

Hole - Jennifer's Body



Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea



Therapy? - NAUSEA



Nirvana - Milk It



Bonnie Prince Billy - I See a Darkness



Slint - Nosferatu Man



Fugazi - Turnover



Bikini Kill - Feels Blind

Pink alternative rock video

There are certain places that I take them. Some of them I haven’t been too on my own, like I’m using their presence to validate my own being there. Perhaps I’m just more scared than people realise or than I’m willing to admit to myself. Sometimes I think that it’s just because I don’t like doing things on my own. I saw a video on Youtube that someone had obviously uploaded from an old VHS – there were all these tracking lines that kept shuddering up and down across the picture. The video was of some mid-90s American indie band. The whole thing was shot through some pinkish, blurry filter. It gives the band and the whole video this easy-to-identify-as-dreamlike-atmosphere/feel that I’m sure was the point. I feel almost bad, because when I watched the video I couldn’t really hear past how the music had dated, I think I was comparing it to the things that have happened in the years since the song was recorded that have bettered it; past the people who have realised certain things a little more … precisely? I’m easily distracted. But something about the video … it feels like it says something about me and something about you. Something about the two of us, I’m trying to say. I guess maybe because you’re a bit younger I sometimes think that I can’t say this stuff, because I don’t want to bore you. I think that’s the scariest thing about all of this. I can’t tell if I have a really blinkered idea about age though, and whether or not the fact that I expect you to get bored is only there because I’m not giving you enough credit. Maybe I’m just objectifying you, and maybe on the occasions when I tell myself how brilliant you are, or how inspiring you are, or how much life you have – maybe I’m trying to fool myself into thinking that I’m not spending this time with you because you have a 26inch waist and the sort of ass that I would kill to stick my face against. I think that if I could just manage to get what the people in the video were going for, then I might stand more of a chance of getting closer to people, and that every time I sucked your cock it might feel that little bit less like dying.

I'm nothing like a tree that has been hollowed out

Step outside of my friend’s house
And I feel like a tree that’s been hollowed out

Never stood that tall, so maybe
I’m slightly off with that

But I definitely feel loose
When it comes to thinking about
What used to fill me or make me feel
More solid

I think about kids
Playing inside me

They’d be ok until
They got to the guts

Maybe the smell would
Keep them away

Hard to tell

I’m nothing like a tree
That’s been hollowed out.

New ideas 124

- Do you think you know me?
- No.
- What do you think you’d have to know about me to know me properly?
- You mean … what do you mean?
- I don’t know. What don’t you know about me?
- You mean like specific details?
- I guess. Maybe.
- I don’t know. That’s kinda impossible.
- Impossible to work out?
- I think that’s what I mean.
- I guess you just get an idea of someone, based on …
- …
- I don’t know. Based on your own way of … seeing things? Does that makes sense?
- Maybe.
- You see people how you want to see them maybe.
- You get clues.
- Yeah. Enough rope to hang yourself!

Ground steadies

I had another panic attack. I was in my bedroom. I ran across to the bathroom, I think. I ended up outside the house. I was sweating. I felt like my neck was burning. Looked at my hands. It always feels so much like dying; that’s an educated guess. Watching myself and trying to watch myself – get that space. Hands on my knees. Eyes just water. Ground steadies? I’m sitting.

All the grey faces

All these grey faces
Turning to look at us
Shuffling
Your cocks in my mouth
When yours was in mine
They were looking at your ass
They were leaning over
Eye contact = questions
So we don’t look at them
You lean away when you need to cum
I worry that the two guys
In the corner
Are gonna move now
Get on their hands and knees
Lick up the spunk from
The sticky floor
You made a joke afterwards
Like you didn’t know what you’d do
If they hadn’t taken no for an answer
Half of you would have pulled them in
Half would have screamed for them to fuck off
All the grey faces
And then just one
Who I wanted to notice what was happening
He didn’t even turn
He didn’t want to know

Seeing the sights

Bones or twigs (for Sian)

It’s there under the spine

Moved some sticks around

Unzipped like a body bag

Indistinguishable: bones or twigs

Spine of a novel

Fingers down a banister

Ridges through polythene

Make room for more

If he ate an apple he knows his gums would bleed

Ecstasy makes his fourteen year old body
Feel like every one of its nerves is standing on end
Like someone is sprinkling glitter over them
Or like a girl lightly dragging her nails down the back of his neck

i.e. it feels good

Feels like his skin is going see through though
That’s by the end of it
If he ate an apple he knows his gums would bleed

If he had friends with him
Then he knows he’d be rubbing up close
Moving like a cat
Clawing
Finding somewhere to rest
Somewhere warm
And somewhere accepting

As it happens all there is
Is the light from the street
Morning dropping a hint
Pull the curtains
Tune the radio to some low hum
Try and forget the worst of the things
That would usually make you feel ok right now.

Some David Lynch quotes that I enjoyed reading

"The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you're dead."

"Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way."

"Death in my mind isn't a finality. There's a continuum: It's like at night, you go to sleep and in the daytime you wake up, or whenever you wake up, and it's a new day."

"To lose love is like light and it's only a problem when there's an absence of it. Pure love asks for nothing back and it's more like a sensation or a vibration, but unfortunately most people don't understand pure love. We tend to put the responsibility onto another person and that doesn't work out too good."

"When you're down, when you've been kicked down in the street and then kicked a few more times until you're bleeding and your teeth are out, then you only have up to go. You get reborn again, and expectations aren't so great because they've taken you away. It's beautiful to be down there. It's so beautiful!"

"I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers. I've always said that if you have a name for something, like 'cut' or 'bruise,' people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don't know what it is, it can be very beautiful."

"The worst thing about this modern world is that people think you get killed on television with zero pain and zero blood. It must enter into kids`s heads that it´s not very messy to kill somebody, and it doesn`t hurt that much. That`s a real sickness to me. That`s a real sick thing."

"The more unknowable the mystery, the more beautiful it is."

"I'm not on a sales pitch."

"I like cappuccino, actually. But even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all."

Last words

"You've been a super son" she said.
All I want to do today is disappear, and not be in touch with this sadness. I want a break, just for a few hours. Sleeping doesn't do it, because dreams don't take away sadness. It's not like I can't rely on them for anything; just not that. Why can't outside be nothing but white? Blinding me. I can't feel like this much longer - not with the sunshine - it's too much like the weather on the days that all of this started happening. And the worst part is how the lonliness can change. I feel like I'm missing someone that I've never had.

New ideas 123

- This is so confusing.
- Yeah. Everything is confusing.
- I’d be more confused if people were straight forward though. Heh.
- Yeah – you mean if things are easier?
- Things aren’t easy.
- I know – I was just saying …
- Yeah, sorry.
- Are you angry about things?
- What things?
- Anything I guess.
- Probably. Can’t say for sure though.
- ...
- Are you?
- Angry?
- Yeah.
- Same as you. I don’t know. Sometimes I think I am.
- Are there things you wish you could take back?
- Probably. But it’s impossible to say those kinds of things really. It’s easy to say them. But it’s impossible to know if it’s true. You know?
- Yeah. I think we’re the same.
- Haha.
- When it comes to those things.
- Yeah I know what you meant. Sorry.
- It’s late.
- Should I leave you to try and … sleep?
- I don’t know.
- Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?
- Now?
- Yeah.
- I don’t know.

9 Black Flag flyers

Monumental slumps

He has these monumental slumps. He walks to the garden. He smokes a cigarette. He walks back. He relays something that the TV told him. He talks about a specific advert that gets on his nerves. He talks about the routine of the man who lives in the house opposite. He says he doesn’t know where the man works but that he always comes home at about 12:30 and leaves at about 1:15. He says he must work near, and he must be coming home from work. He doesn’t know the man’s name. He says something about another advert. He says that the 24 hour news channels repeat the same things over and over again throughout the day. He says that advert is on all the time. He goes to the garden. He has a cigarette. He stands with his hands on his hips and faces away from the window, looking down the garden. He walks to the bottom of the garden and stands with his hands on his hips and looks up the garden at the house. His eyes aren’t on anything in particular I don’t think. He says there was a bee in the house earlier but that he thinks it’s gone now. He goes to look for the bee. He says he can’t say it. He sits down. He says something about the TV. He watches the boy delivering papers walk past the window. He doesn’t say anything about the newspaper boy but says something about the post. He says it comes at a different time each day. He says it would be better if it came at the same time every day. He says that if he was waiting for something important … then he trails off. He talks about an advert that he likes, and laughs. He’s told me about it before. He says something else. His thumbs are bleeding.

In general I don't like to repeat myself, and I know that I already did a day about this guy, but hey! you can NEVER have too much Elliott Smith ...

Stupid

Last night
I almost
Did something
Really stupid