Hand in hand in hand in hand
they sat.
He held it by just continuing to hold,
and sure – that’s a strategy, too,
when it comes to women.

She looked ripe to cry,
a blonde and pedestrian sorrow.
Disappear here:
“When we kiss, I feel NOTHING.”

Worlds of want which
wither on the vine,
at the end of her
thousand-yard stare
(or 914.4-metre stare
for all my homies on the metric).

One day (or in one day)
she’ll up and leave ‘im
so I wonder:
“Who will it be
who tears heaven asunder?”

It’s a basic bitch world
and that is how it’ll stay.

Not taking “no” for an answer. Seriously, it’s just gonna drop to the ground and lay there if you don’t take it. You’re gonna have to pick it up. So just take the damn thing when it’s handed to you; easier that way for eeerrybawdy.

Crafting sentences into weapons, into sleek high-tech killers with each word a cog in the machine of evil.

Being held for contempt. I mean, hold me because you love me – or at very least because you care, yeah?

Being vague on purpose to extort more and more and more down the line – at the expense of the ties that bind. 

Like, totally!-tarian states.

So, anyway. I got you something cheap and impersonal to remember me by; to craft my feelings into material form and hand’em over on a slow afternoon.

Nothing is coming out.

Goddamnit all to hell. Did I catch something from that intern last month? This is not the damn time for a man to start having this kind of trouble.

Then again, when is such a time…? Ok, now I’m getting something… nnhh… aaaahhh, there we go. Finally. Was starting to get embarrassing.

The two suits outside the bathroom stall are still making idle chatter. There’s a stinging feeling in there, though. Most, ah, vexing. This is not the kind of predicament a man should find himself in. Whip it out and then, just… well, faff about for fifteen seconds because Mr. Johnson isn’t in the mood to cooperate. 

It’s against the natural order of things, surely. “When nature calls”, they say. Well, nature called and I did my best to answer, despite how Mr. Johnson feels about it. 

It’s quiet – beyond the sound of the current de toilette, of course. The suits outside the stall have fallen silent. It’s the loneliest place in all of God’s green earth, this here. The off-white bathroom stiles. The chlorine smell in the air. An inch of plywood on each side of me, separating me from the world. And in the middle of it all, one man and that stinging sensation. Sounds like a bad jazz band, that last one.

I’ll have to talk with the doctor about this. I think I have an appointment with him soon, anyway. And, ah, note to self: find an excuse to get that intern, buxom as she may be, fired. Or find someone else to find an excuse.

Which reminds me, I’ll need to call Mac tonight and tell him to give everyone hell about this morning’s memo. Can’t do that myself. Thank heavens for him. If there ever was a man in his place and not afraid to get his hands dirty, Mac’s the one. Lord Almighty himself could afford to take a vacation if Mac was doing St Peter’s job.

Still that sting in there. Fffuck. Sure hope I haven’t caught a bug. The missus will be furious if she’s got it, too. And she’ll huff and puff about it behind closed doors, but… no, no, she’s probably in the clear. It’s been a while since we, well… I have my meetings and the job; she has her schedule as well. Still, better not risk it. I respect her too much for that.

I do love her even though there are other ladies. And plenty of them. Doc will give me something for it, I’ll give it a week or two – and lo and behold, as if it never happened. Immaculate un-conception of any bug there may have been. And Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. And next time, I’ll be a bit wiser. Start wearing a rubber johnny, for one.

There we are: see you later, Mr. Johnson. The suits’ conversation has not picked up. I flush the toilet: some punctuation for your civil silence, fellas. 

Always with the suits. In meetings, in conference rooms, in briefings, on airports, at fancy dinners: always so serious, always making polite, as you do. Suits and suits and suits, a never-ending march of them from sea to shining sea. This job has taught me to trust the handshake and eyes of a man more than the cut of his coat. Some things money can’t buy.

I open the stall. Suits idling around the sink: No. 1 coughing gently into his fist, No. 2’s broad back turned to me. La-dee-da. How’s that hair… aaaand looking sharp. Ladykiller. 

I head for the door, Suits 1 & 2 follow suit.

The new aide is waiting outside. The kid lifts his eyes from whatever brief paper he was going over and twitches at the sight of me. Christ above – relax, son, I’m not gonna bite you. Whatshisname… Andrew, maybe?

“So ah, Andy, is everything ready? We can go?”

Andy (did I get the name right? Probably not. But he won’t correct me.) blinks behind his specs, his new suit both well-cut and ill-fitting on his thin frame.

A quick nod. “Yes, sir, we are. Right this way.”

We trudge down the corridor in the dark mass of suits. Like a pack of wilderbeast crossing the savanna, sun tickling tense jaws and watchful eyes.

Connally waits ahead, ready to greet me. He’s beaming: greying, smug, new to the job and thinking hisself a well-earned cowboy to fill those boots.

We’ll, let’s dance then, partner. Podna. My hand lunges forward, grabs Connally’s; we shake and smile like the old pals we most certainly are not.

“A hearty welcome, Mr. President!” he bellows (as much as you can bellow within our echelon of society). “Dallas is privileged to have you here on this beautiful day.”

“‘Tis kind of you to say so, Gov’nor.” I smile more and flash some teeth. Mac said it’s an expression of domination in the primal world. “It is, ah, an honor to be here.” A small slap on the shoulder, there: the tap dance of diplomacy. 

“I, ah, understood it’ll be a steak lunch, yes? Nothing like a Texan steak…” A quick wink. “…but don’t tell that to your esteemed colleagues in Arizona.”

Now Connally laughs; genuinely bellows it out this time. “Indeed, Mr. President, indeed! Shall we?”

“We shall.”

With the niceties spoken, we head for the cars. It was a moment well played. Actually, damn it to hell with that pissing problem! It’s probably nothing. I’m in Texas, the sun is shining, somewhere out there’s a steak lunch with my name on it, and the nation loves me. Life’s for living.

I have a good feeling about today.

And we push ourselves up towards the air.

To think of Metropolis: its Graham’s number of stories
and oceans of morning coffee,
the days we build the castle in the clouds
made of cigarette smoke of the nights.
The red headline psalms scream
of bridges built only to be burned down,
of our time spent kissing lips and kissing ass,
infinity gathered in stupendous mass.

My fight is the long, long night
and my regular a bar called Dos & Don’ts
where all coming in are the Dos
and the going outs are the Don’ts.
And I’ll find a Do and become a pair of Don’ts
that write the story of escaping Emerald City.

I want to live where the summer’s rule extends to law –
gently fire all my bullets into the sun,
grow as old and wise as the hills, a day at a time
and to my children prove our Belief in Better
was not a relic, it just needed a worthy direction.

They will ask me: “Father…
Where does the sky begin and end?”
And my standard reply will be:
“Behind her eyes.”

And until we meet that day,
we will keep on pushing ourselves
up,
towards the air.

“I think that’s the new world.”

Sandy’s voice was matter-of-fact in a way only she knew how: like she’d discovered a thing she’d forgot the day before but that was now again clear in her mind, indisputable and beyond any reasoning except her own. Which it usually was.

“Hmm?” I surveyed her from the corner of my eye. She lay stretched on the park grass, squinting at the sun and the blue sky above.

“The clouds, they’re the new world”, Sandy clarified. “I mean, just look at them. You can see that there’s, like, a shape to them. Forms in them, like some bits are higher and some lower. Like lowlands and plains and then mountains here and there and they have that thing going on, that, well you know…”

“Topography, you mean?”

“Yeah!” she yelped. “That’s the word! So anyway. They have the topo-thingy to them, just like Earth has. And they have the sky seas around ’em, just like Earth has, sorta. And they’re there, within our reach. That has to mean something. It’s the new world that we will go to once we’ve polluted and messed up Earth too far. And then we’ll just live in the cloud world, I guess.”

I turned my head to give her an are-you-serious-look. “Are you serious?”

“Like a heart attack.” Sandy lounged on the grass, enjoying her train of thought and its ride as it choo-chooed up into the air and into the clouds. “You know me.” She stuck a few fingers into the tangle of her carrot hair.

“Your mom must have drunk bong water while she was pregnant with you. Nobody could – – “

Sandy shook her head and tittered. “Shut up, you dork!” She threw a hasty slap at my shoulder and nudged me playfully.

Laugh bubbled in her throat as fingers dug softly in my skin and she surveyed me with a cocked eyebrow and blew a raspberry at me. “You’re a dork”, she informed me, “and dorks aren’t gonna be cool in the new world so you better be careful.”

“Okay, Cloud Princess”, I smiled back. “If the clouds are the new world, like… I dunno…”

“Like the clouds are the continents and the sky’s the sea between ‘em”, she explained patiently.

“Okay, like that. So what are the thin wispy clouds, then? Ones that are like cotton candy? We couldn’t live on those, could we?”

Her eyes rolled in the duh-motion typical to her. “Duh.” She pulled her knees up and rocked herself into a sitting position, observing the tattered clouds with the airs and graces of an academian tutoring her intellectual subordinate.

“Well, Mr. Dorky McDork, the wisps are the islands and the marshlands. You’re going to have some places with more damp soil down here so you’re bound to have something like that in the new world, too.” Sandy mimed the playing of a banjo and cracked a stupid smile. “Born on the Bayou”, she laughed as she set herself back to the grass. “Dontcha worry, delta child, ah know what ah’m tokin’ ‘bout.”

Her hands lifted to shade her eyes as she considered her future world. “Naturally, you’ll need to be careful in those areas so you won’t drown in the sky oceans”, Sandy admitted, dropping the mock hillbilly drawl. “But that’s just life, dude. Life in the new world.”

“And what about the fact that the clouds are up there?” I pressed her further. “You know, if the sky is the sea, then we’d need to live upside down in the cloud continents, wouldn’t we? Ain’t we gonna fall down, Your Royal Highness?”

Sandy shrugged as if there was no problem. “That’s just a question of point of view, ain’t it. Who says we are right as we are with our feet on the ground and head up towards the sky? It could be that the right way is actually the other way, like with your feet on the clouds and the head towards the Earth.” She laughed. “So don’t think you know it all, wiseass.”

“Fair enough.” With Sandy, it wasn’t so much about thinking outside the box; there was no box to start with. “One last question before I start looking for properties on Sky Mountain: how are we all going to get up there? I mean, all of mankind. Last time I checked, spaceships were expensive and crammed as hell.”

Sandy’s response was to scratch her freckled nose. She had a habit of doing that when she was deep in thought. “It’s going to be a global project, of course”, Sandy weighed her options, “and no doubt all governments are going to have to chip in. But of course they will. Mutual benefit, see.”

She paused and closed her eyes. “I’m not sure quite yet if it’s going to a vast fleet of supermegaspaceships or if a super-elevator to the sky would be the better idea. I mean, the ships would need to come down every now and then and it would mean fuel costs. The elevator would be slower, sure, but more cost-effective. Maybe. I’ll still need to think about it.”

I turned to my side and quietly looked at her. I felt solemn as I watched her think about her project that would save mankind and bring about the new world in the clouds. Sandy wore clothes a size or half a size too small: this was why her bleached denim short shorts and v-necked t-shirt accentuated her form a bit more than was necessary.

I always told her she didn’t need to dress like that, but Sandy had a mind of her own about such things. “Rocking that tight shit makes a girl look goooood. Ain’t nobody that don’t know that”, she pouted to me once after I’d protested against her getting another set of clothes that she was an inch too big for comfort.

And in some ways, I just couldn’t disagree: seeing how the fabrics hugged her body tightly, I regularly found myself thinking how I’d love to unbutton her shorts and tear off that shirt in a frenzy to get to her thighs, to the curve of her hips and the angles of her shoulders. The soft skin and the freckles that marked her in selected places. Gateways to what was her.

Sandy plucked a bit of grass between her fingers and rubbed it absent-mindedly on her thigh, leaving a green stain. “Think I’ll call it Project Staircase”, she mused. “Or Project Sandy’s Staircase, if I’m feeling vain.”

I shifted around to my other side so she wouldn’t see how my eyes welled up with tears.

I wrote down “i love u” on a paper scrap
and carried it around like a bullet,
scared that it might find its chamber
in you.

It is why I have trouble with sleep.
To know you, is to live in possibility.

Cutting ribbons that guard Faith herself –
I got more deadlines than Death.
My car’s a lemon, my flat’s a bucket:
fuck it – I’ll make lines out of that.
Reading into things, things that ain’t there
and I’m in love with passersby:
so long, my sober, thought-through day.

My brain’s a seedy porn store
and believe you me, the credit’s endless.
I am all hell to pay,
my own bouncer at each door
and so far from playing it safe:
if the pearly gates are open, they can wait.
My eyes are a stream, swim up skirts
and sin is just a human convention;
words for words, touch for touch
and tit for tat in a brutal world.

I want to violate in ways permissible,
push to the bounds and stop;
make keepsakes off a sober silence,
walk with fingers the high ‘n narrow pass;
and trace the river to there
where the water’s not shallow;
I want to and I want you.

I wake up from a hole in the ground. It’s just a small pit in the earth, maybe four or five feet deep, its walls made of dried and clotted soil. I climb out of it. It’s an early morning and the sun isn’t even properly up yet. The sky is a pallid grey, hinting of a day to come but not yet promising it.

Everything is a dark, rich and sleepy sort of green and brown and I walk around on a forest clearing or a square of sorts. There’s a statue and a well on the middle of it, with poison ivy growing over and around everything.

I look at the statue, portraying a robe-clad angel, made of white stone. It looks brittle, small cracks dotting its skin, wings and robe. The face is female and lacks any clear emotion or expression. It just stands there above the well, both structures about a foot or two higher than everything else on the clearing. It seems they have a tiny knoll built for them, with large stones creating a circle around it.

I keep walking around the well though it’s dry and I know it’s dry. And at that moment I realize I need to drink – and at that moment I realize I can’t since the well is dry. I feel the first signs of panic: I know I’ll need to drink soon and there’s nowhere to go because the well is dry.

Dumbfounded and frustrated, I kick at the well. That knocks off a single brick. But the mortar of the well is loose. The well begins to break and quickly comes all apart. The bricks fall one by one down the well and all I hear is the sound of rock hitting against other rocks in the dark depths.

The well is dry and I want to drink. At that moment, the sun starts coming up. I turn to look at the edges of the clearing and see a whole group of women dressed in white, thin robes appearing from the woods surrounding me. I look at them, knowing they have come to get me now. I somehow know what is about to happen.

“You cannot touch the well“, they whisper all at the same time. “The well was, is and has been and will be and you cannot touch it”, they start saying over and over again and walking towards a step at a time, the circle of white garments and eerie female figures closing around me slowly yet surely.

“The well is dry”, I try to explain but know that all I say is pointless. “It’s dry”, I say over again and their voices rise higher and higher and they are like one, drowning out any apologies or excuses I try to tell them.

I know that there’s nothing I can do to stop them or shield myself from their judgment. It’s time to go and all because I wanted a drink of water.

The women gather into a small circle around the knoll on which I stand with the angel statue and the well. One of them steps forth. I couldn’t move if I wanted and if my life depended on it. She steps to me and I cower against the remains the well, losing my balance and grasping with my hands the ground.

She looks down on me, like not sure what to say or do. As if she’s not certain if she feels anger, sorrow or pity towards me. Or just simple judgment for what I have done to the well.

She kneels down to me and repeats with an icy voice, speaking by herself but sounding like dozens of their voices speaking in unison: “You cannot touch the well. The well was, is and has been and will be and you cannot touch it.”

“The well is dry”, I think and I find myself crying. I don’t say it and just shake my head. “Please, no. I am sorry”.

“The well is not dry. It is you who are dry”, she whispers and holds out her hand to touch my forehead. I close my eyes and everything is dark.

At that point I wake up.

The difference between my days
is the night.
And on that thought, let us begin!

I have lists of things to do:
Monday made a box of “take the suit to the drycleaner’s”
and Tuesday ticked it –
Wednesday picked up the suit that Thursday wore
and Friday… don’t even start about Friday’s boxes to tick.

I shuffle the tarot deck of business cards till they’re in Order;
I am Video God, St. Stationary & in Her Majesty’s Seeeeecrrret Seeeerrrvice,
with a license to kill and a few software licences to boot –
I’ll take you to the fucking cleaners, alright…

Snap pictures and photoshop you out:
unspilling salt from the wound!
And go for broke like it’s all I know:
steal wisdom off the lips of Page 3 girls,
craft minor happinesses off of paltry victories,
folding origami out of Dear John’s just ‘cause I can
and think of [This content has been removed by decree of the Brighter Futures, Inc., dedicated to Your Welfare and Mine in all events and scenarios, sub-contractor to the State. If it’s of any concern, it wasn’t all that interesting, anyway. All inquiries as to the nature of the removed content are to be directed to the Ministry of Meaning of Life. We guarantee answers but not the Right Ones. Boy, I really should know when to quit, shouldn’t I? Enough of that, thank you, remain safe.] in the break room
just ‘cause they say I can’t.

How do I feel like? What is me?

I feel like I do when I’m tired and I’ve had way too much coffee when I think about seeing you in an hour or two.

I feel like the moments I felt when I was watching that big game and it went to penalties and I was just hoping my team could pull it off and then they miss the first shot and my heart sinks, when I’m with you making stupid jokes. And then when you smile at one of those stupid jokes and tell me one of your own, I feel like I felt when our goalkeeper caught the equalizing opportunity and it was anyone’s game all over again.

I feel like I’m looking at the sun and have to remember to quickly look away when I’m watching you write something and then you raise your eyes and see me there.

I feel like I’m fourteen and my voice is ready, willing and able to break and go up and down and sideways and forwards and backwards and everywhere and nowhere any moment when I talk with you.

I feel like little invisible imps jump on my shoulders and steal all my best words when I’m listening to what you’re saying and my brain is in overdrive trying to think of that witty response that would make you smile.

I feel like I’m a piece of butter in a pan that’s not quite hot enough yet when I see you with someone else and see how you’re enjoying your time and don’t look at me.

I feel like I’m a piece of butter dropping down and going shshshshsshhshshshshsshsshsss in a pan that’s way too hot when I tell you a story and you focus on me and are really so into it that you want to hear more.

I feel like I feel when I’ve done my weekend shopping and then realize I forgot to buy wine and realize the shop closed five minutes ago when you text me to let me know you’re not feeling good and we’ll have to take a rain check on that meeting we were supposed to have.

I feel like I feel when I’m asked to leave the bar by a bouncer twice my size since they won’t serve me anymore when you need to go and you say your goodbyes and hug me and everyone else and see you later and I so hope ‘later’ would mean in five minutes but it might be five days.

I feel like I just stood up in front of the class for no good reason and everyone’s staring at me when I tap you on the shoulder since I need to ask you something about that thing tomorrow or next week or whenever it is since it’s not the thing I really want to ask you about but something else entirely.

I feel like talk is cheap when it comes from anyone else but when it’s your word, each one is a freshly minted silver dollar falling and making that amazing *ssshinnng*sound.

I feel like I am the colors and you are the sounds and we are the matter at hand when I look into your eyes and you don’t avert and I don’t avert and we don’t avert and we don’t want to and the stuck record of that shared moment and gaze is alright and neither of us wants to lift the needle and continue but let it play a few times more, play it, play it again, Sam.

I feel like I’m playing chicken with a gang of outlaws that have nothing to lose when I ask you if you want to see something cool and then tell you I could show you a little magic trick.

I feel like I’m dismantling a bomb in the basement of a primary school and there’s less than a minute left on the timer when I start showing you that magic trick.

I feel like I’ve broken the 100 meters world record when that trick succeeds and your mouth opens up and your eyes widen because you weren’t totally expecting that.

I feel like I could break that record I just set all over again while dismantling that bomb and playing chicken with those outlaws with nothing to lose when you grab my hand and tell me I need to show you how it’s done.

This is what I feel like. This is me.