The Eyelids Diaries

8/18/2019 The Eyelids Diaries

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THE EYELIDS DIARIES

sara shone


2/78

the state of the eyelids is the state of the soul. on a sundaywhen somebody is driving you to the seaside in their dad’s

mercedes 230E, you lean your right temple against thewindowpane, until it burns, there’s sunlight all over your face,

wheat shimmers on both sides of the road, air conditioning notworking, no conversation left to improvise, the sky so clear itfeels threatening, vaguely exposing, you close your lids. it’s

snowing on the radio, and way too loud, you weave together

your mascara lashes and daydream about someone else. yourright eye starts lacrimating, he asks if you’re alright.


3/78

to old friends and swollen scars


4/78

PART ONE


5/78

1

i am the malnourished mongrel that treads slowly. and scrapeshis over-sized ribcage against the red velvet creases of yourqueasy meal of pleasures. the glasses jingle as i pass by, thegrapes roll off the table. two thousand commensals, each withdilated pores, each with dilated pupils, and throats full to thebrim, and roman noses floating upon chaotic cirrus clouds of

laughter, vulgar how they’re pointing at the sky, aiming at afresco of perversions yet to perpetrate. four thousand handscupping gently my muzzle, forcing me to look away, toounabashedly and persistent to be kind, too stubborn and sly tobe innocent, too lost in embroidering their persona grain aftergrain to notice how i’m not here to lick the fallen bones, howi’m not here to gather the crumbs.


6/78

2

the intensity of you-concept, just the thought of you, of you, theintensity of you, in me, it is. enough for an inward fall, anintimate outburst ! it shatters the shell of myself. leave me,for i am one single aching spot, precipitating into someperversely contracted inner-tremble, earthquake-tremble,through broken windows. still no cracks in this body, no

surfaces to scrape and fondle, perfect desperation, untouched,distance perceived as une"pected migraines but note"perienced, the echo of a desert, morbid triumph, theparalyzing liturgy of beauty, leave me. as i am.


7/78

3

generating sounds, of any nature, is something you need andwant ! winds flow and they blow inside of you but you, andyou, why do you let them brush against your skin, shake yoursoftness, stroke your strings#

when you groan in your sleep, those nights, certain

nightmares, perhaps you just wish for someone to come insideand switch the light on# when you moan and you’re with me,when you laugh and you’re with me, when you cry and yourtears resound between bathroom’s tiles and your cry is notsilent, never quiet ! is this the purest way you have to let meknow#


8/78

4

the microscopic earthquake of beauty of those golden cracksthat open just so slightly and much more painfully between theuseless mauled murmurs of everyday conversation !someone is giving you the very words you’ll remember themfor.


9/78

5

been living inside this ache for too long. sometimes i listen forhours to myself calling myself from one room to another, fromthis depth to a different one. i perceive my body, distant in thisbody, somewhere else, outside these walls. i can barely feelmyself around myself and always so light, so feeble and thinas only skin is. the limits are blurred, this pain and its core can

never be found.


10/78

6

the unknown is an universe of its own. space betweenborders, ignore matter. everything oscillating. it$s harder todraw flowers on paper when paper is ink-black already, easierto draw flowers on paper whose color you can$t see.


11/78

7

when i walk i just step from one thought to another, my feetnever feel like touching the ground. my head is filled with coaldust, i drop memories that burn and blind me too much to betold apart. and all fades, and i fade along. my fingers aren$tnumb, i know where i am, i know which nightmare is ne"t. ipoint at things from a distance, things behind the glass,

objects inside the glass, lights wrapped in plastic.


12/78

8

i never got back the love i gave away. upright uptight, i neverasked. nothing is ever lost but love, nothing is ever created butlove. it’s just different, the matter of matter and the matter ofemotions. subtle as nerve gas. there are no scales, no juries.the only witness denies. and they sucked it out of me.


13/78

9

if the ache is dull the body is strong can the body be at all# !normalize%d& sadness, we are all %screwed& ! mentalization%slow, adagio& ! a thin layer, clumps of flesh, fake eyes, lidsbent inwards ! if the ache is dull the ache is dull dull dull%echo& ! is it inside of me or am i am i around me am i aroundit# ! i can wear wings, astral or genetic ! i need to grow

wings soon, muted volume when i break.


14/78

0

there$s an ouija board machine online and a place where youcan buy white birch logs. eating fish embryos is consideredsophisticated, kissing is not always appropriate, fiveparagraphs long speculations on cultural appropriation, popsinger on '( %fake jungle&, old singer on '( %nice tan&, deadsinger on '( %big sweater&, check out our new products, yourteeth could be brighter, your day not so much.


15/78

touching is touching. the wind whistling between the teeth oflonging. each hand accepting the slow shedding of the other.decay undermines every movement. lift me, drag me down,we$re dancing together now.


16/78

2

wet, black, throbbing. one two, one two. organs work in thedark, there$s no light inside. self-awareness comes at nighttime, the outer matches the inner -- and wonders. you sweatand you$re blind and you kick your sheets off. one two, onetwo.


17/78

3

the overwhelming presence of myself inside myself. all thecrevices are crowded. i$m marble, arabesque over arabesque,i$m things that kick and bump %)*' +* '&, i$m kgs ofocean, rough waves, smooth rocks, throbbing, elastic,hardened, e"tra-tight ropes carved into pulp. surface tension.this pressure will shatter me to wet sand.


18/78

4

they spat me here middle fight with ribs cracked already andalready barren lips cracked and mouthing water, water please.the ground is dry the wind is wild, this ring is a wasteland ofdunes and shifting sands shifting flowing shifting through me%forever is slow& ! concrete ocean, more waves than i cancount ! if i knew how to run i would not run if i knew these

words i’ve never heard i’d watch them swallow themselves letthem swallow me down.


19/78

15

these circles around my orbits are circles of stolen life upon ablackened oak stump, converging lower, lowest, to mossgreen liquid gloom. they can count on me all the days i spenton my own, they can see the love you etched on me, neverhealing up.


20/78

16

skinning your knees your whole life to scrape together crumbsof nothing. asthmatic gag refle" panting and scratching andsweating off the recoil of an a"e blowing at the indestructible,spine vibrating, metallic ache, every day blood stained nails.dust fighting for dust. crawling breathless to a death byaccident, worth nothing, all your rotten heirlooms scattered onthe merciless concrete, all you throbbed and burned for,awaiting yet another starving hyena in the neutral land ofhuman insignificance.


21/78

7

if only we were simply smuggled into these greased gloves ofskin at birth, could just smoothly slip inside and only then startthrobbing, swelling to fill every cubic inch. then maybe itwouldn$t drive us that much crazy to degenerate e"aggerateo"ydate eventually get bitten by the frost of death. those finalsmoments we would just sigh and say, oh it$s nothing darlings, it

was the wrong envelope anyway. but i$ve been twisted andtwisting inside my skin, curled and protected, interconnected,kept warm and comple", breathed and sweated oceans ofliters, sweated blood even, and all the many venoms of pain. iam my skin. my skin is all i can see.


22/78

8

i close my lids without feeling it, with just the mechanicalaptitude required to dole out every drop to the throbbing glass.as i close my lids ten thousand pounds of porcelain platesshatter in the dead echo of a shutter falling shut. ten thousandpounds of bones clash and crash. a car got stolen at thenorthern edge of town, accidents have left the waiting room,fatalities now slither slow and fluid in the grease of darkness.the old bank is falling to pieces, its hardened and plumbeousveins e"posed. only stray barks fill up the night, the sidewalksare staves for these mangled notes to yelp, and bay, like onefinal groan, the last long doubt left to a man who dies alone. ifmy heartbeat was distant and ripping-sharp and tenacious asthis wailing, this requiem of dirt and dust, my thoughts wouldrun on a single, whole string of something. barbed wire, silk

thread, thread with no needle %would have been good for oldsocks&, blade of grass, yarn and yearn, train tracks, do notcross these lines. i was broken into pieces from the start. i amsmall chunks bitten off death, a chain of junk-pearls, necklaceof dog-teeth, hanging entrails whose shadows drip in littlepools of blood on the butcher’s basement floor.


23/78

9

your lips reveal the bright void within yourself. you’re telling methings that sound too heavy for any of your surfaces, so you

just drop them. / 01* 2' /1 34/ and things likethat. but you don’t look too good yourself. if those things werewritten on paper, i could barely read through the smears andsmallness. the tragic sun of your within shines through, your

lips move and when they do you just know, i just know that it’s just another day of smothering, muffling the wheezing, losingsight in the struggle of bucking with your lashes only. just toconceal what’s left of your bonfire pain. the flames reach out toyour eyes, but it’s not you. your crystalline has turned to thicksmoke. i reach out for you from here, locked inside. / 01*2' 52654* /1 34/ and things like that. i’m tremblingbecause i’m not a child anymore. i have detached myself from

the outside, and i’m not these things i can easily discern andtouch and count on my fingers. i got shoved into doubt to thepoint of full absorption. there are no borders, no north and nosouth to define my own where and what.


24/78

20

the scum of this town will outlive you. you are as dull as plasticyet you’re given the lu"ury to rot. and you seem committed tothat, you seem achingly aware. willing to get consumed, wet-eyed longing. i admire you, the flat naivety that dries up yourmouth just as you spit it all out and admit that’s it, i’mworthless. that’s it, that’s all i’ve got. i have learned to see pastall your furious e"cretions, your raging e"ecration. i watch youdigging your nails into barren soil, mile after mile.


25/78

2

apparently it is true that matter is 77.78 empty. i sink deeperand deeper inside myself everyday, choke on meaninglesssoulscapes, unwanted by the void itself ! the elastic disgustof my own abyss lets out an impenetrable groan, baritone andslow, tells me to cut the crap. tells me to fi" my eyes on theever-shifting ceiling. i am afloat. i am the only authentic throbinside myself. and i keep spacing out. i space out stirringcoffee, space out waiting in line, space out taking notes, spaceout smiling, mid-conversation, mid-hurt, mid-bleed, mid-cringe,space out watching the news, taking the bus, spaced outpleasantries, spaced out weather-sucks-todays and good-morning-anyways, spaced out should-have-drunk-dialed-firsts,space out missing calls, spaced out this stinks, this sucks,spaced out give-ups, spaced out sweating, first time kick-

bo"ing, spaced out clogged toilet and e"pired disinfectants,space out keeping the beat, losing it on purpose. they’ll call itla petite vie. spacing out staring at your cracked lips. you areclose and i can see you and i can see you are willing to detectit, you’ve grown so attached to me so soon and so sweetly andnow you are worried. your voice is still strong and you grab meby the shoulders to pull me out, and you save me but still seenothing wrong. you hold my hand and you wait. still too cold.

you hold it until you’re satisfied with its warmth.


26/78

22

now that i have forgiven too much, now that i have beenshoved into the dead-end between words and the world. nowthat my skull cups moist soil for doubts to grow. i haveforgotten things. the first breath of air e"haled e"hausted overmy scalp, and my mother’s gown, and inside all the weeksspent blooming blindly, when i was just absence and then

clutter, when there were no colors, just tones. quiet floatingcoma, untainted yet so self-absorbed to reach universalunconsciousness. still not there, almost sinking into darknessagain. untouched, but never sterile. a glass house sleeping inthe storm. a heart beating in its fingernail shape, see-throughpetals and so much light, a shell of clean canvas foldingaround silence and danger. at night i wrap my arms so tightaround this old idea of myself. in bed i spoon with death, i

dream of getting born again.


27/78

23

tacoma, 97:;. the smooth polarization, bittersweet flow ofinternal frequencies, slow and persuading ! both theirreversible and the unattainable ! outside just quiet shivers,zero friction. swinging sideways, no sparks, back and forth, noopposition. holding sway, watching it go. the tragic dance tothe river had an unrealistic taste for the eternal. our privateresonations too, they ended up in collapse.


28/78

24

the architecture mimics that of a mosaic. each piece of thegreat picture stands like a monolith with no time to cast itsshadow. and all come falling down, collapsing with their backon the ground. onto each other. it’s a machine domino that youset in motion at birth. each bit takes great effort, great amountsof grinding teeth and squinting eyes and dark paint strokesthat just won’t come off. you long to impress your flowing fleshupon the careless state of static of the world. you think it’llkeep you sane, defined. recognizing what your hands can doby looking at the prints they leave, time after time. time incontrol, your purposes finally labeled. leaping over and overagain over an overly lively idea of yourself, your arms pushingdown on your shoulders, your arms mimicking your arms.overcoming time until the end of time.


29/78

25

my only gacela, asleep in the daze, hiding in the nerve gasheat of memory. everybody knew what you tormentedbetween your teeth. the hummingbird bones you chewed upidly ! they were mine.


30/78

26

clouded, blurred, all i ever grasp of myself is smoke. life bysuffocation, life by tiny doses. if my sight was clear and myinsides clean, i’d choke on myself. i’d choke to death, i’m toomuch to take in.


31/78

27

june melts one by one the obsessions that kept you going allwinter long. wipes them off the table. leaves you dry andnaked and untouched ! not even a gust of breeze to relieveyour widening cracks. and again you’re just sampled bones.paralyzed. dead wood, tree with no lymph. waiting for the ne"tchainsaw to e"pose your very core.


32/78

28

the great ache of acknowledging one’s own pain as small.minor aches, just minor aches. i won’t turn the other cheek justto wet your hand and wish i could burn your blood instead, andleave bleach-proof stains. the great ache fading way too slow,of fading way too slow. and the tiny tears, everlasting dew onthose whom love was denied to. the great ache of having

mistaken it all, the great ache of never having known it whole.


33/78

29

me, holding in my arms my ruins and rubble, all the leftovers ofmy private slaughters, one by one. the sons and daughters ofmy anguish, and their sons’ sons, and their sons’ daughters.the failures recited into detail, without even breathing. recitedby heart, in a low voice, like a prayer. i hold them in my armsand i press them to my chest, i lull them and hush them andtell them to go to sleep. with slow eyes and slow hands, mysweetest nightmares and you. you, who are not like me, youwho kiss me with your eyes and you who laugh and collapseand wreck the ground when you’re wrecked. you are your ownavalanche.


34/78

30

an inconsolable storm watches over my sleep. there’s notenough space for time in my womb of concrete and do i feelsafe enough# i ask myself, and answer myself that there’s noneed to do that now. just don’t do that to yourself right now. isee you in the distance, i see you sitting down on the syntheticbrown of the tennis court. sitting down with your legs crossedbecause you’re bored. that is how and where i saw you for thefirst time, and when, it was long ago. and fuck, why. i’m scaredof not remembering it right, the whole damn scene and howdid it go and what did we say, and now it goes that i sit downne"t to you. my hands fall by my sides and i look down at mypalms which are facing the sky, and i wonder why my palmsare facing the sky. it makes me look like i’m praying, ecstatic,like i’ve just been fatally wounded, pathetic. if i could just stop

that, but i can’t. the sky, which they’re facing, which my palmsare facing, it is gray. it is summer, it was summer when i sawyou sitting down on the synthetic brown of the tennis court,and it was about to rain. you didn’t cup my wounded hand,which you are doing now, and you didn’t squeeze it and askme ! why are you so scared of dreaming about people whichare gone ! and e"plain me ! you’re just giving back to thecosmos the love you don’t need anymore, you know love can

get recycled these days and there’s lots of people who need it.i don’t have the strength to protest. you used to say a lot offucked up shit my love, but you never said that. you’re stillholding my hand now, you’re promising you’ll dream of me,you promise me long distance dreaming is just like ping pong! don’t you see how easy it is, the universe is watching, don’tyou see how the universe is nothing but a huge deformedcrystal while we’re specks and dots and broken bits,


35/78


36/78

3

i know e"actly why i’m doing this, dissecting my inside-bodye"perience. square millimeter upon square millimeter.inflammable, analyzing how to catalyze the combustion. i can’tstand the inertia of wholeness. self-destructive, but just to burnyou with my love. just to light up a different patch of sky. acathedral of bones set on fire. i won’t stop until i’m sparks.


37/78


38/78

33

we meet again after five months, after five months i stillhaven’t smashed in the rotten teeth of this bad habit, hangingdown from your lashes whenever you cup your guts and burnyour eyes in me. you tell me things i don’t need to decipher, iflip through your dotted lines and e"clamation marks as if iknew already. and it hurts me to know you so well, to help youcup your guts while we’re doing this. so sharply, we recognizeeach other like knife and skin. if your eyes had lips they wouldbe agape and wheezing right now. i would be drenched andshaking, left there, hanging loose, an old rag waiting in thesun.


39/78

34

the atom body, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance to find myhead where my head seems to be. but i’m not there. my bodyis the smallest part of me, my flesh and bones are my onepercent. i get hurt by distant things, by distance itself i getbruised. i see my face reflected in little known faces, in theunknown i see myself e"pand.


40/78

35

this is for 1. you just needed your own personal ganges. tomoonbathe below the midnight clouds and let the weight of thewater dissolve you. a sugar cube dipped in kerosene. walkingwith leaden legs wrapped in the leaden river to neck level,begging for the light-house light to spin your way. but youwouldn’t soak a finger there. you’d spit in it from water’s edge,you’d keep inhaling your high-priced, gold-coated carbonmono"ide. the sky i would paint for you is the sky he showedme, violet and heavy, the night we climbed the stairs to theattic, hand in hand,


41/78

PAR WO


42/78


43/78


44/78

38

how many strangers have you unstrangered in the past si"months# be careful, be full of care. did you have breakfasttogether, did they have something stuck in their teeth, achipped nail, or bitten, a hole in the fabric over the elbow.which color was their coat when you said come in, howthrilling, or else irritating, the sound of their tennis shoes stepson the moquette. be mindful of the parts of them you wante"posed. give it a millionth thought. modulate the enthusiasmof your own hands as you pull off the blanket. don’t let theirfeet out, kiss their brows, don’t leave them shaking.


45/78

39

there are no bricks left to dismantle yet the ground still bearsthe pressure, an old unwanted weight, we pack and moveaway before the deluge. we blame our leaving on badweather. now the muscle cabin in which we both hide issealed, boards and planks all glued together, but still creakingand throbbing. you slammed the door open for me, you toldme i would be safe here. you said you had it all mendedsomehow, you had it in control. i double-check all theequations of our wanderings, with their reagents andcatalyzers, with my inde" i trace mid-air what’s evaporated, icount each speck of cinder, i grasp at floating dust. iremember the premonition of a toothless mouth. if you have noway to deconstruct it, grab your clipper scissors and becautious. cut along the dotted lines.


46/78

40

the amount of public bathrooms i’ve cried in, it isn’t glamorousat all. a highway stop around naples, the department ofbiology, some winehouse downtown, my high school gym, thetoilets in the museum d’orsay, an hotel room on the coast, thetheater before my first ballet %>;;?&. i’m asking you to imagineeach blackened brick, the ivy crawling up the walls outside thewindow, the spiders crawling down the walls inside the cracks,all the telephone numbers, the obscene teenage outburstsscribbled in red marker, the apathetic vibration of her te"t-backs, dry ! why are you telling me about this now# ! thesmell of croissants and abandon and hand sanitizers andfailure, the mirrors either o"idized or fogged, half-dead plantsin the corner, fake flowers. the barman’s unsteady smile as iflash past the counter, the fat attender all dressed in white,

scrolling her cigarette in a plastic plate filled with coins. thereasons were always foolish and vulgar. that’s a neat thoughtand it stings like a needle. i lock myself in my room, a roomthat is not mine, inside a home that is nothing but a highlyfunctional cathedral. tearing apart what’s left of silence. fourshots to clean my lungs, pausing rhythmically, osmosis ofchaos, brain echo. i’ve always been immune to rational pain,to celestial schemes. some would argue stardust is blood

soluble.


47/78

4

my mother hands me a grocery list written down in blue bic inkon the back of an old photocopy. it’s just a small piece ofpaper, folded in four, ripped from two sides ! e"egesis forkids, the crossing of the red sea, quick and dirty catechism.what are you going to do, moses, with a bottle of skimmed milkand this loaf of whole grain bread, with one liter of cardboardpacked orange juice and a ball of lettuce, with the tiny cat ladyliving near the gas station, now walking up and down the sameaisle fifteen times per minute, holding a melon with bothhands, cupped. good evening, one bag please. why do you cryto me, moses# stretch out your damn hand over the check-out.


48/78

42

modern neurosis, running around the gates of eden to find afaulty lock and step back in. we feel so close to what’s within,but we can’t befriend the ground to grow inside the cageagain. shaking bones and teeth, withdrawal symptoms coatedin gold, thieves and beggars wearing designer lingerie.


49/78

43

she says @i wish all animals would just die”, i cry for two hoursand half. you’re the woman in my dreams, dressed in leatherand holding a baby lamb in her arms, a : credits worthseminar on mental illnesses, ted bundy at years old, scarmarks discovered at :, death by accident, the dragon i think isaw on a rorschach table !Athis is supposed to represent your

fatherA ! the mein kampf re-adapted for kids, a matryoshka ofvoodoo dolls, summer prairie fires %arsons& and fire fighterscrashing down, kundera’s tereza burying the dog, the closureno one was e"pecting, assorted and diluted obsessions.


50/78

44

hands around the back of my neck, i admit that i am too youngfor any of this. waking up at overdue hours with a head packedfull of chaotic and fluorescent se" dreams, endless chases,one minute stand kisses, roaming fingers. and nightmares soboring that do not make my body twitch anymore. e"pected toswallow whole your sugarcoated anathemas for breakfast, tonod quietly at your harmless @don’t worry, it’s benignBs, at theenervating, e"tended series of @now you might want toBs, andchew with calculated slowness all the idiotic @let go of denialBs,@these things will always happenBs. give me the intravenousdose. quit my attempts at anticipation, waiting all my life in awaiting room that is posh for no reason, ridiculous, half-slumped half-drowned in the oily smooth leather of thisotherwise empty five seats couch, staring at the ceiling, at the

fake gold chandelier. cheap delights, useless distractions. i amcomfortable enough, comfortable with the idea of deathlooming over me. i cannot smell it on myself, yet the stench inwhich passerbies are dipped and drenched ! it is enough. icough, and gag, i bring both my hands to my throat, i struggleto hold my laryn" in place.


51/78

45

weltgeschicte, all the layers of the world. how manycentimeters of rubble are we allowed in our lifetime, how manydecades will it take for our e"cretions to sediment, how manycenturies to saturate our private shreds of troposphere. andwhich one of the surfaces above weighs on the rise of mychest like the moon’s naked face, with its low tides and hightides, precipitating with and against gravity. and then my skin,mangled clay. shaped for millenniums, battered and squeezed,moulded, folded, held, caressed by the glowing hand ofhistory.


52/78

46

your hands always slip from my eyes last. strong and pale,veined like marble or e"tinct butterflies. e"plicable either bynature or art, rare but hysterical. i follow them fluttering as youoverflow, all your words rearranged in rivers, horror of theonlookers. you soul-bathe in conversation, the whole ancestralrite. voice thick like tears, i almost feel the need to hand youpaper tissues to wipe the ink dripping to your chin, or else do itmyself. you say @that’s morbidB a lot. i have to reassure youfrom time to time, tell you that your sanity defines mine. youblush and smile, your freckles are sparks, i stare at yourfingers once again before tilting my head to the side. perhaps isaw too much, perhaps i still know nothing at all. i picture yourskin cutting its way inside foreign skin, your palm wrappedaround a newborn’s head.


53/78

47

lost at sea inside myself, floating weightless through cold flowsof blood, warm whirls, waves of skin wrapped around me tenthousand times and more. i haven’t come up for air in weeks, idon’t remember where my bones are buried nor whose are thefaces shouting my name onshore. this is not a crysalis, there’sno solace in this, no protection, no doubt. deep blue water,

wildest limbo. the wind is changing and i want to get back.


54/78

48

sate and pathetic like a blind mosquito, drunk on someoneelse’s blood, i am left to sow stones and child teeth to calm theground, the dirt and dust still blooming in the sun, the swollensoil and its smell of wet dog, of women lashes after therainstorm, hunter and prey, eager but defeated, the soilburning and boiling, roaring, lamenting, waiting for brightknees to kiss it, and kiss back with its jaws wide open. theearthquake groans under my skin. i shake in the matriarchalshadow of an old olive tree, i need a new pair of shoulders,new arms to be grateful, to stretch my skin at stars, not justsatellytes, new lips and tongue and gums to twist my throatwell, and name them. nobody has been home in years, wewere taught no way to know better. nights are too damn warmto feel like the day is ever over.


55/78

49

they say you can’t say which smell your house smells of untilyou shut the door behind your back and stay gone for months.then you come back, swelling with e"haustion, remorse, a lightsense of loss, and your old house smells like wet wood smells,smell of birch sipping lazily on raindrops, heavy but calm,oblivious of the violence. i haven’t slept in three weeks. at

night i lay down on a worn out couch and bare my teeth to theceiling, check if my body feels the recoil of shooting thoughtsfrom lobe to lobe, silent bullets, old tracks, back and forth. thefriction of migraine, forth and back. i cannot sleep because?;; 0+ in this apartment is rush-hour for memories to crawlback home. each rising moon silence drops my bodyunderwater, the room gets filled with sound, my muscle drumscans the hour, one beat at a time. i hear my sister cry, my

sister laugh, my mother call, my father walking in every fridayafternoon, the rotary dial telephone stays unanswered while itswhim goes on and on, squeaking drawers in the kitchen, thewhole ton of porcelain cups and bohemian glasses shaking intheir cabinets, my child feet stumbling on every kilim rug, myteenage guts coming clean on the persian one, the vintage fanabove me, loud and useless like an old insect, skyscrapers ofshelves gravid with slim books, bought for cents at one fleat

market or another, even baking a terrible apple pie with you onthat june afternoon has its sound at ?;; 0+, burning both ourtongues on hot chocolate, and when you came over afterrenting the wrong movie, and when you recited me 'heComplete )ist of Dills /ou Eere 'aking, said 42’' E11/ 5

0+ =0/, you got something for headaches# and laid downon this very sofa, when you barged in to throw me a christmas-wrapped book i never read and walked out %gotta go, gotcoffee with my dealer in fifteen minutes&, the summer we lost


56/78


57/78

50

these weak limbs are holy enough for well-seasoned blood tobe culled within, yet i still keep all the litanies to myself. mybest selling tragedy had your throat shake in a heart-breakingyawn on page three, for it was you teaching me how to cheat,and your fist clenching mine clenched upon our hiddenagenda. the sound of old skin coming apart neat and clean

under the knife. my crooked intentions and your frothing eyessaw light from the same womb.


58/78

5

how do you know it’s your eyes you could see through whenyou’re blind, when unknown hands know hands only. younever had time to spend on your own, i had too much.


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you were golden when losing it all, you shone sharp and lightbehind the curtain of fingers upon your face. a web of hair gotcaught playing water-lily by the wet glow of midnight past five,you hated it and cried. you cried when you realized there wasno time to bury your secrets in the sand, for the ocean wouldnot let you visualize all your false steps disappear. you criedwhen i tried but could not shake hands with each of yourcompulsions, obsessions, whatever, amen, when i fumbledwith blades and edges, unknotting your lashes, severingleashes. i remember your old skin, your indigo lids, the littlevein bridged under the bridge of your nose. who cut your hair#who did you cut your hair for# who do you think about whenyou slip in those blue jeans# and who bought them for you#look, that’s a lot of questions for someone who will never learn

to listen. what did you just say# i said, we should leave thisplace with fists shoved in our pockets, gaze down, just likethat. walk away, pace slow and hard. but we didn’t. the eldershad no grip on your wrists and your generation taught younothing. now that your hunger lays spent beside you, you don’tneed to hide yourself anymore.


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our heroes are inert flesh, paper skin, smuggled data, fakedaccents, manufactured alienation, cellulose triacetate lockedaway in forgotten basements. now look down, look downaround you. all the ass-slappers, heart-patters, butt-fuckers,back-stabbers, all these fucking sneering faces full-timeparading in the everlasting heritage of pride and hate, doesn’t

the thought of leaving for good make your whole set ofmucosae wet#


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when darkness falls it fears no gravity, and it’s slow and it’ssmooth as silk. but you who are burdened by grace, you whodo not feel heavy without heaving, you with your tremblinghands, with your back glued to the floor, swept up for nothing,waiting for no one. you will drown in its black honey.


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you come to sit by me and tell me how you conquered theworld, marching in time, many times. methodical, one for eachkarat weighing on your fingers and twice for every onshorewave of saliva glossing up your voracious lips. you lick themonce again, the tide comes in. my hips feel the unrest of alooming thought and my legs do shake, my wrists chained stillto both sides of my silver plate. it seems to me that i onlybreathe in, but never listen. the young monk sleeps naked, hisbright robe folded and sat waiting on the wooden chair, i thinkabout the needle and the thread that first marked it, and madehim theirs, i think about my father’s coat hung up in his room,when the door is finally shut, i think about the wrinkled browwearing its cupped palm, and the fist slammed on the counter,before the arms pass out. all the centuries you have spent in

silence, on your knees, praying for me to become yours tocrumble ! they’re forgiven. you had your back turned to themoon.


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twice is not enough for any nightmare to be recurring. onemorning i will not wake. i will wash my face into an emptymirror and walk back to my pillow just to dream of myselfwatching you leave. these sugarcoated hallucinations, they willnever sate me. my insomnia is disturbed by quiet chatter,clinking cutlery, shuffling shoes of children playing catch insidemarble rooms. everyone is still talking about you, that you willbe home soon. your name is on the papers, spelled in neonover barber shops and supermarkets. i got the symptoms, but ihave never withdrawn. the rain will come unannounced, andfall down unheard.


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they can break you once and five thousand times too many,they can crook your bones, blow by blow, glowing anvil,hammer down. crack them clean, first round. or else wear yourshedded sorrows and dance around your curved back, yourcupped face, to celebrate their delusion with derision. they’llnever have you, they’ll never know. the last twitch of fingers to

check-mate what they’ve done to you, that will be yours. insideyourself there’s yourself only, you are full and whole. cherishyour core muscle, the matter that moves your matter. the wayyou want to appear is truthful and pure. in time your wish willbe your only shaping need.


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black spider sprawled out on the wall above our mailbo",crucifi" and reminder of how any ache is ultimately paralysis,pain as crippling pressure, bleeding gums in the jaw of time.


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our beauty is worth nothing. we will never weigh enough toleave any trace behind, any unregenerable scar, any incurabledamage. we spend our lives in limbo, never ever casting away.and the earth laughs at us because she knows, that all is justslow motion deterioration. there’s no stasis when inches aremarked in flesh.


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i have made rat kings out of my fears, left them at your door. icontradict myself every once in a while as last resort to comeand go full circle, just to be sure. i crave the drops and watchthem carve my stone bones, and yet i know, don’t i# that thiskind of flow needs no wind. here i am, cracking crease aftercrease. when paint dries up, it usually gets darker. and you willhave yet another layer to cut through.


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6

do they love you or do they just love to wildfire the neutrallands framing your eyes# spinal refle" of compassion, is this

just another classified parameter, statistics-proof, sampled andinfallible, time and time again, forever unworn, this spat-outcoin, electronic beep, the on and off switch, ending quick andclean, tested and tried, sold on the black market twothousands years ago. would you lock it away under @vulgarand profaneB just because of the scratches it bears# wouldyour blood flow quieter, straighter, smoother, now that yourskin can’t come apart against its old crumbling edgesanymore# softer and swollen, we have wasted centuriespressing our tongues against the wet river beds of stitches andscars. you don’t shake now, you have dried out. and i won’tbuy it all again, i won’t sit still through the whole list of sick and

dead and missing. i can still pretend this sounds new to me,that this feels true. slowness is sacred, the devotionorchestrating caresses can’t be faked.


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you condescend to loving out of self-loathing, incandescentand desperate, growing faithful weak slow like grass aroundyour crippling crack, your amateur distortion, your secretcongenital disease. omniscient tongue licking the dust off yourown lies, glance crawling up from wall to wall when it’s yourturn. hopeless, you don’t hold me now that i am not. you

squeezed me hard enough to glue my crevices back together.


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in my nightmares i’m lying to my friends. those nights i roamaround heartbroken, dry lips, cold sweat, how could i, whippingmyself with questions who do not even bleed out, how could i,how could i. when i lay down with my friends, i cannot sleep. itwist and jerk away my wrists from orpheus’ grip, can’t you seei cannot do this# can’t you see. i remember the first time istayed up all night, it was spring. we got high and sat downshoulder against shoulder, backs to the brick face of thebuilding, the balcony of some cheap hotel. all i could thinkabout was sheets, pillows, concrete. i imagined both ourbodies as pencil outlines, could almost feel our ribs, tracedand light, overlapping. puzzled together. when these thingshappen you realize the city is just one big dormitory, you lookat any building and see its bones only, see all the beds in it,

mattress over mattress over mattres, iron strings, bended andentwined, all just stacked onto layers of concrete. you pretendno dirt gets in between waking up and going to sleep, ever. weonly do what we have to. when you quit trusting the moon todo her thing, when you uncover the dangers you werebiologically trained to skip over, every and any detail alwayslooks washed out in the morning, almost trembling. it justdoesn’t matter anymore, which and how many atoms you

could split in two in your own room. what could go wrong, itdoesn’t bug you. what could go wrong. you don’t regret itbecause you survived something terrible within you. and theydid too, but they don’t know. you are not the kind who wouldlike it better, looking away. we were children for too long, fortoo long we would wake up pretending unknown men had leftgifts at our doors. when you’re a kid there’s always someoneworking for you while you sleep.


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it has come to a point where i can’t stand the mere thought ofsitting down to share a meal with them. bite the hand thatsmacks you around before shoving the pill down your throat,and so on. i miss the south, i have hated it there all my life andnow i want to come back. there are places you can spendhours at, entire afternoons, the sun will never falter. time never

walks past and you’re forever ten years old, you can buy a bagof pistachio nuts for cents, count the golden teeth and woodencanes that tremble around you, make pretend cobblestoneswere carved out of soap bars. and down along the coast, allthat really matters at lunch hour, when rocks split one by oneunder the weight of the heat, is how loud you are, how muchyou will sweat for it. you crawl down the cliffs and slip andstretch and jump into the water. the sun will never falter and

it’s all just salt onto salt.


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the cicadas outside my window have gone insane. there isnothing i should be reminded of, nothing left to oblivion now. ihave learned that wounds never heal, or heal too much. healwhen you don’t need to. heal while you are asleep, with onefinal childish sting, to pull you back to consciousness. wet andelectric, your left foot shaking stiff, once and twice, suddengoodbye to the paralysis of relief. this barren land got stitchedup many times, fall after fall. you shouldn’t feel compelled tobe cautious. some clots are still bright and soft, round likebuds, carmine pearls. the mines i have found have all beenplucked out of the dirt, defused. those forgotten wait half-awake with you. wait to be breast-fed with rancorous grace, bypunctual promises whose candor was never granted. theground growls in thirst. and tonight too, my body lands could

quake. i am very careful, drunk with passion, walking barefootdown the hallway, cupping with both palms a cup filled to thebrim, while the river banks grow higher, and you drink and youswallow it slow from a borrowed pillow. you are warm, you arequenched, you are reckless.


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old people offer each other their seats on the bus. young boysand girls stay put, they chew gum and watch. they sit andstare at my shivering back, pressed to the glass. we go uphill,grinding teeth, we make a five minutes turn to the left. no oneis looking outside. no one raises their voice to claim they arehere.


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grass grows slow upside down from palate to tongue here i amsinking deep beyond bone and marrow eyes and limbsregressing to numbness my skull itself a hard swollen spongeeach punch-hole a thought of you last night i dreamt of desertdunes as smooth as your knees tonight it is time for me toshed some and change some and die some more and rain myspores around i want

i want to wear your skin like plastic uncomfortable cleanaseptic some killer suit a butcher suit the suit of a chemicalengineer disposing waste your skin fitting around my ownorganic waste and still yours to see through yours to shinethrough they will love you much and hard but never own youlike i do.


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the lights go out in the apartment, just as i am almost donebrushing my teeth. i close my eyes and let the foam talk, i doknow many stories about teeth that i can rattle out to myself onmonday mornings like this one. i slept fine. perhaps i wassupposed to dream about the things that i am reminded ofright now, i don’t know. i can never tell for sure. there’s the

hard shell of a suitcase standing tall on the moquette of ourhotel room in prague, i’m twelve years slower, we’re leavingsoon. mom and dad and me. brushing my teeth in the paleapril heat of a G;; 0+ weakly awake lightbulb in paris, rightabove the mirror, i’m fifteen years old and i told you we werelate. brushing my teeth at the darkest


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i crave unknown places, i yearn for spaces unmapped, unruled,unmarked, all marked by the un, the ir, the non. only dreamed,foretold by the oracle of insight. delirium of beauty, delirium oftruth, delirium with no proof at all. for i know my body cannot part,or be part of the scenario either. and i can still possess withouttouching, and protect the untouched, and let the touch not spoil

the matter. my body forgotten by the experience, in theexperience lost. but not hidden, never hidden. molten, my body,and consumed by the fire within, shaped anew, merging and

blending with the body of thought.


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don’t show your face to god, don’t turn your head away whenthey teach your hands to cheat. don’t hide the filth of your fistsonce you’re done with stones. watch us as we lay out yourlies, to shine and sharpen them, to taste their blades for thespan of a drop. we gave you fire and we gave you blood, bloodwe gave you and iron and dust. we gave you all the means toprotect yourself. not out of kindness nor pity, not out ofcompassion we asked you to dance. on the


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Documents

The Eyelids Diaries