Early morning lessons

A squatter's life goes until 5 in the morning. It doesn't sleep much, it listens for rats and mice in the dark. The life tries to stay as far away from knowledge as possible.

When you're somewhere between state lines and you have delusions of grandeur, I hope you'll think of the sky, because it sees you as much as you see it.

The night sometimes wants a bit of space, so it pushes everything away with gentle breezes. And onto the next place you should go. Don't mistake its politeness.

In between pieces of gravel there are pieces of smaller gravel, and those pieces disjuncture to make gaps that whisper fire's crackle in light and dark. You can hear them if you want, but they only sound when made to; they're phantasmal.

When your lover one day takes her brittle arms and wraps them onto the railing of a train, kicking one leg up, and chanting incantations, you should gather distance. The sight is perfection.

If your pupils don't dawdle long I fear I'll assume the worst. They should constrict and elaborate something of your solitude.

When the gravel under the train speaks you'll feel more than see your nightly lover parting, but that feeling will be numb, and especially frozen at 5 am in the squatter's palace. 

Romantics and their deaths (Part 1)

How would you like to die?

Dinesh sits with his eyes closed. With a deep exhale he begins.
"Crossing the street I reach inside of my pockets, into the corners and around the wallet, the pencil, the notepad, in search of my lighter. My lighter is lodged between the wallet and the pad. My footsteps crunch through the snow and all I can envision is the satisfaction of the deep clouds of toxin smoke. My pack of cigarettes are wedged between my chin and collar bone and the pressure feels good.There is a car coming, a bit too far to acknowledge. I pause for a second adjusting the cigarettes to relieve the pain beginning under the corners of one the box's sides. As the box falls into the perfect spot my middle finger realizes it has met the lighter, and I take the step into the street. "

"Boom dead. I'm dead now. The driver realizes what he or she has done (it doesn't matter) and cries, and my blood drips done until it soaks the lighter and mixes with the fluid inside. "


The wallpaper of the room stops the diffusion of smoke into the exterior that the romantics do not recognize. Four chairs sit circling a table used only to carry the ash tray that sits atop . A candy cane has been dispensed to the four romantics as they recall and recount and re-imagine their lives with respect to a question.

"Well, hmm. I'm not sure. Maybe, maybe... Wait, I've got it, why don't you stand up for a second? Let me just illustrate it." Steven stands and haltingly waves his arms for the three to arise. "Here! You stand here...and Ellen, you stand directly behind Nora, but be nonchalant. Don't think about Nora; she doesn't exist, okay? Pulling arms and pushing backs, he arranges the three into solidly relaxed positions with Nora's head tilted slightly upward, and Dinesh with his pinky tapping his side.

"Yes, I'd stand directly in front of you\, he says pointing to Dinesh."

"Why? I don't understand. Is this how you'd like to die? Is this it? Waiting in some line?"

"Yes, yes it is. We're in the checkout line, at Macy's and not just Macy's, but Macy's in New York City. I've never been to that one. At the head of the line, just as someone, someone who doesn't matter and might be walking away, is leaving the line, I begin to make look all around. My heart is exploding, the register-lady asks me to step up to the counter. I do. I do, but I can feel my heart just thumping away. Thumpthumpthump, thumpthump...thump. My eye'll bulge and fix on her eyes, and she'll think I'm mad and glance at Dinesh for help. His fingers will stop thumping, my breath will release, Nora, beginning to notice, will take a step forward in the woman's defense, and Dinesh will hear Nora's step and look back, causing Nora to look back, and everyone will be looking at everyone else as I falter and die. I'll die with and without everyone! My head will lay where so many feet have, and my pinky will touch my side. Dinesh will notice while they are screaming and calling 911. The store will stop and then after the numbers are punched, everyone will relax, and everyone will pay for their picks, because some are on sale. "

Nora goes to the window to lift it, making a gap between it and the sill. She reflects on the communication, the distance, the unity. She thinks "the window is unified, the parts are not." A gust torrents through, hitting the four and prompting them to retake their seats. Each stands before their respective chair and after they have all arrived they sit in unison. They make eye contact with one other and shift it around, hoping to ensure they are all together. 

Achinprop

Hello there,

I'm looking for something that will prop my chin up when I walk.

I've tried hair weights

lined up on the back of my head,

they just hurt my neck.

I drew the American flag on the tips of my shoes,

I just became nationalistic.

I tried really hard to look forward,

but I can only look down.

I need something...

What'll it be?

A helmet that keeps my head in place? Something big? Something elaborate?

Please help me prop my chin up,

I can't go on like this.

Cleavage

Somewhere in the sweet supple breasts of Lisa I can see ghettos of microbes huddling together, smoking crack pipes, calling out for some god to take those pale mountains in palm and squeeze them together. In her ghetto are my eyes, watching her dinge and grime barely covered by some grey blouse from K-Mart. Her arm crosses her torso and her neck stretches out while her head cranes into her shoulder.  In that moment I believe she has come from that ghetto on her chest—she has somehow ascended it, but barely, growing out of insignificance and into its representative. Giant microbial being—I deem her, and she smiles one of those smiles that lets you know shes uncomfortable and waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile, in the ghettos, a young microbe lies in Main Street and dies as she scratches her cleavage.

The Bathroom Stall (Number 2)

Under construction

The Bathroom Stall

The word is large. A bathroom stall is small. Whilst out in the world, trodding and plodding like we all do, there are many actors at play, many rituals and norms that we all adhere to (barring certain extreme circumstances, namely Scarsdale). Occasionally, the universe shrinks and all outside your cranium is metaphysical. These are solitary moments with the self, when you assume that the outside world is functioning and moving along fine like it always is.

Today we shall focus on the revery of the bathroom stall. Sitting quietly atop a porcelain throne, one goes about his or her business. One sits in relative silence and is comforted by the fact that the procedure is endowed--to a large degree--with anonymity. One is encased within a shell, a very unique shell in which all that onlookers may ascertain about the inhabitant is the manner in which his/her feet are outfitted.

As a resident of Scarsdale, I see it as my duty--an unwavering one at that, which, if I do not do, I not only cease being Scarsdalean in every meaning and understanding of the term, but I also pose deep and concerning questions to myself about my purpose in life as a result of not adhering to a certain aspect of a life philosophy which dictates to a large degree my every action that I implement on the surface of this green Earth--to introduce chaos into the universe of an occupied bathroom stall.

"Crooooooo-wat!"

"Eeeeeeeer-wat!"

"Booooooo-knock!"

"WASP!"

"Raaaaaaaaaaaaw-swatch"

"Neeeeeeeeeeeee-loff"

"Booooooooooow-tock"

"NOSH"

I can scarcely imagine the thoughts and the confusion that this series of exclamations sets off in the universe of the bathroom stall which I am not a part of, but merely an anonymous inscrutable statistic in the metaphysical realm of the outside world that is in fact not part of the "stall universe," of which one lone person is an inhabitant of. All there is in response is resounding silence emanating from the stall. The Scarsdalean then leaves, vacating the innermost layer of the bustling, abstract humanity without.

Closing The Library

The sound of machinery hums, fills the void.
Every two minutes the grating sound of the minute hand scrapes its fraction of circumference, the other filler of The Friday Void.
8:29pm. In waddles manager and "The Library Closes in Thirty Minutes" in the same tone for years.
"Alright, flush 'em out."
I walk through the deserted building searching the crannies for patrons.
When I find one, you know what I say.
I say, "The Library Closes in 25 minutes," and they nod.
Sometimes I amuse myself.
"The Library Will be Closing In T-minus Twenty minutes. I repeat, The Library Will be Closing In T-minus Twenty Minutes."
My voice booms through a wide open room.The only way I can accurately describe this is to say that I state the fact in a similar manner to the New York Lotto Mega Jackpot man, and I chuckle.
I get annoyed when patrons are still in the library after Nine O'clock, the official closing time.
For instance, today at 9:02pm there was a girl in the computer lab, just sitting.
"The Library Closed Two Minutes Ago," I state with force. "Get out," I want to say.
So she gets out. It takes very little prodding, but still, get out before Nine. Come on.
I forgot to mention the bells. 30 Minutes, 15 Minutes, and 5 Minutes prior to closing time we sound the bells.
They are loud and occasionally I have a manager on board that delves deeply into the realm of Schadenfreude; he sounds the bells just a bit too long, potentially piercing patrons' tempanic membranes.
And we laugh.
And so the library closes on a Friday Night.
And so it goes.