okay-all-jokes-aside

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

1010 reasons why picasso woud be cancelled if he was born in 1999

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Little stomach, growing and shrinking in size 

I huff and I puff and your voice it resides

Pangs of hunger; no baby no you 

I cover you with cloth, cotton, linen

To conceal this disturbing bulge no baby and no you

I let the sun set my skin alight

Imitating the ember that was you

And this is the furthest I can go though I yearn so for the end that would lay my stomach flat and silence the syllabic fragments of my baby and you, slowing dwindling away behind light that blinds

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

This morning I woke up alone but I could’ve sworn I could feel your cheek nestled away in mine. And I was okay then because I realised I could keep you next to me in spite of this gaping distance between us and its attempts to swallow our closeness. But now I’m just sitting here and I can’t stop crying because I can’t reinvent you all the time and this is what distance is I suppose. So I swallow my aching desire to call you and hear your voice. And I’m just thinking how I wish I could feed you and encourage you and I know I’ve fucked everything up but I really can’t seem to find hope now as I sit here and try to organise these thoughts; you are gone

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

But then I wake up and think of you estranged from these thoughts of mine that used to tie you to me with the rope I idealise, tightening the further we drifted apart. And then I feel calm inside because I know you deserve so much more

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

I keep thinking I have to stop thinking about us because I’ve been envisioning your head on my shoulder and you feel so warm and you are so funny. I wish I could laugh with you again but you told me you never want that again and now I’m thinking of dying again and I just want to know you’re okay but this is my punishment; the cold and confusing unknown. Did you eat today and do you like my new room? It gets very cold at night and then I feel your absence more intimately. I just keep reminding myself that this is for the best this is for the best and then I think well who is the best and why am I giving them so much? But then I remember you’re not here to laugh at my jokes anymore so I shut up...my silence is all I can give

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Today the wind scathes my skin, a transient scar that pulls and pushes me in directions unknown, totally confused and frightening and maybe a symbol; the ever unremorseful tug of change that does not apologise and does not answer my questions. Is he okay today? Did he remember? All I have is my silence that I hope will shield him from this cold and empty reality. For a moment all is still and I am entitled to light my cigarette, I wonder is this a symbol too? But what could stillness mean to me or, perhaps more importantly, to him? Maybe it means that for a second I am allowed a moment of peace and quiet, rescued from this tormenting future of him and another. But probably this is all a rouse, an eluding facade of calm, and I am left just as confused as always.

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

It was this time 2 years ago I was falling falling from heights of dignity and heights of independence into you, we weren’t kissing but we were close and we promised we would always stay close but now I’m lying here waiting to stop missing you so I can sleep checking to see how long ago you were active to reclaim some semblance of familiarity

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

To my mother and to me today is the day we celebrate life, the circular bond of reproduction that ebbs and flows like tears down my cheeks and i will consider this process circular to pacify this burden that is my flat stomach, I miss you terribly today and every day but today perhaps you would have been born and we could have celebrated together through this pacifier but instead we will celebrate across different planes. I love you I wish I could give you everything my mother gives me

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Now we’re both interlocking our bodies with others and we’re doing what we can to distract ourselves and we’re forgetting, forgetting what we shared but there are moments I feel this sharp pain in my stomach as it rolls over and I’m thinking of you again and how you make me laugh. Or made me laugh. And you too roll over, caressing another with the same velvet cheeks you used to impress upon mine and it’s just so lonely to know that and to think that. And then I hear the sound of your laugh and everything falls apart again; me, this distraction, this silent future that forgets how you laugh. And you keep saying this is life and this will end but what if this is just the beginning of what will be the longest and most painful period of suffering either of us will ever endure, the total dismissal of a future we held so dear in the tiny cracks that eluded our cheeks as they nestled. And i am just a total fucking burden a total fucking disappointment to myself and to you because I can’t seem to control anything except the method of death that tempts me like a string to a cat. And like a string it tethers me to the total elimination of this empty future totally bleak and fucking depressing. When I finally grasp this string will you know how to cut the other end? When my laughter resides will you replace it with another? And what sort of jokes will you tell I wonder will they be the same that left me in tears, heaving for air and knowing all along that this is the future I will cherish and hold so close I will not let it evade me like all the other futures I thought were cement. But just like all the others you were built over, gentrified by a complex no one wants but will generate profit so will be sought

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

I can see you both through the window of what was to be our Yarraville cottage

You’re making dinner together and around her bloated belly your frail tree branches wind until she is safe and she is at home

And I am outside peering in wishing I was her, knowing I cannot and I am cold and alone and there is no reason for me to be here

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

My stomach grows tight when I consider this future I will go my way you will go yours

I’m wringing it out like sponge I’ll soak up another and through him I will hope to submerse myself in you

And I’m so fucking angry thinking of her nestled away in the contours of your cheek

I’ll vomit everything away I’ll vomit everything away until I know I can’t speak

Today I saw a baby that looked as though it could have been ours and they smiled at me and I thought maybe that’s what happened to us, the reincarnate

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

There goes your gentle warmth

That which once fostered respite from the havoc outside must reside and like a struggling little ember you have died

Though apprehensive I glimpse this consumptive future without you, totally forlorn and fucking empty

Cradling my spine you radiate through limbs that seek your imitation

And just like that I am home but now I have to move again and I’m stalling VCAT and I’m leaving my stuff out but I can’t cling to these walls much longer

And in the night I will dream of your eyes up close

And in the day

And I know I’ll forget your gentle warmth it’s just a break up but I’m freezing fucking cold in bed at night and it turns my stomach to envision this future without you totally dull and fucking depressing

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Mock Execution

Amid thrashing waves of contempt, amid the velvet grasp of deprecation, amid the nauseating crutch of derision, the melancholic must find their way to shore. And you may consider me insane, for indeed I am generally opposed to the consequentialist approach to moral dilemma, but I do believe the means justify the ends for these tormented souls who want nothing other than to submerge themselves in the gratifying beams of sun that seem so effortlessly to soak the sponge-like skin of their counterparts as they lounge indolent, staring vacantly at the horizon.

For I am not referring to those who have the time to idle over a book like the reader or myself. No, the mock execution cannot be justified for those who have the means to cultivate hobbies, and I am ashamed to admit that I have imitated the method of the melancholic, pretending to understand the rhythm of the tide which so violently chokes those who really suffer. I, on the other hand, wade into the eternal expanse of blue at my leisure, unfurling my limbs, rendering my vessel buoyant, squinting my eyes at the clouded figures that dance before me. 

The theory behind the method goes like this: in order to conceive the vitality of life, one must come near enough to death to believe it as imminent and thus regret ever thirsting for nothingness. And one cannot merely imagine the imminence of their demise; the cold uncertainty of the afterlife must grasp the melancholic with the impossible grip of a lockjaw, bewildering them with its paradoxical inevitability. And one cannot divert their eyes from this disquieting gulf; they must allow the waves of uncertainty to surround their psyche and digest the hypothetical, collapsing the very fabric of their future. Hopeless, the melancholic will glimpse one single shred of potential joy and they will resent the silent and real chasm that looms before them. And like this, they will realise their desire to live.

Many have not returned from the mock execution for their designs were either too contrived or too vague. The prior were shy of truly recognising death, the latter realised it all too tangibly. Indeed, the method is risky, and so I will repeat my aforementioned sentiment; only the melancholic are truly justified in undertaking the mock execution.

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

A short excerpt from the life of Lyubov

I

This is a short excerpt from the life of Lyubov, a Russian youth who found solitary respite from one especially cruel winter in the barren wilderness that lines the northern territorial barrier of the Buryat province, found on a map on the southern fringe of the mammoth body of land that is Russia. Like so many lives, Lyubov’s contained numerous excerpts worth noting, and the one shared here is not especially exceptional in comparison. Nonetheless, a writer must find some way to select one story from many that will entertain their reader, even if such a selection is utterly arbitrary. Enough from me.

In a mass of land that was left vacant by an agrarian reform of the 19th century, Lyubov acquired a modest cabin to lease for the relentless Russian winter which habitually invaded the idealist’s psyche. Perhaps, Lyubov hypothesised, a southern refuge would eschew the migrant Siberian winds that so scathed her social encounters every other year, unforgiving and bare. It was only with aggressively pinched eyelids that Lyubov reminisced on that violent wind, consoling herself through the repetition of generic mantras that reaped no real cognitive reward but at least distracted her from the opposing and intolerable repetition that one finds themselves succumbing to when they are idle and cannot, no matter how vehemently they protest, elude a memory they wish to forget. Only here, in the company of the infertile earth, could she detach herself from the natural insecurity that plagues social encounters, ominous and persistent, unchecked by hollow conversation and hollower clouds, encircling the Petersburg metropolis like vultures around rotting carrion. Only here could she defy these vain competitions that emerge from sterile conversation, inducing ugly discord, bloody and merciless. Only here could she flee the counterfeit laughter, the upturned noses figurative and literal, the deafening echo of words unspoken yet understood all too well. Alone and adrift, Lyubov sought to conquer the insomniac self-doubt that preys on the susceptibility of youth, mutating innocence into cynicism and vanity unrecognisable. 

Of course, years of experience or glaring grief would have taught Lyubov that this process is self-refuting, for isolation tends only to cement isolating understandings of social contempt, especially in those who have not experienced real loneliness and so must cease relations abrupt and unprepared. Lyubov could not hear this reality over the obscure utterances that sifted through hoarse Petersburg winds, morphing into familiar depressive mantras, as are so painfully common amongst youths who are yet to truly suffer. I am sure the reader does not require an example of such a mantra, for I have known them to be quite ubiquitous. I only interject to imply that I do not intend, through my recounting of this excerpt, to mock the naïve idealism that drove my protagonist to escape the warmth of her family home on that harsh winter. And it is true that these mantras I mention can travel through wind, for a depression that knows no cause will find a way to the vulnerable mind through any means imaginable.

I digress. Lyubov deemed it necessary to escape the repressive smog that infested her home in the hopes of regaining the purity that so commonly betrays the scornful expression of children who, given a change of scenery, marvel unashamed over unfamiliar surroundings. So, like a child who comes to resent familiarity, Lyubov wrote a brief note to her parents which summarised her task, assembled her belongings and silently climbed over the front gate that separated torment from freedom. And in that lifeless night she stood motionless, facing away from her home toward the long journey ahead, listening to the pace of her heart rate, gauging the mass of fog that emanated from her breath. To her total dismay, no genuine difference could be detected. Never mind, she thought, change will come. The reader need not be reminded that Lyubov was ignorant to the impossibility of engineering the type of change she sought. Psychological change, as the reader and I know, does not require geographical change. In fact, it is common that geographical change will mute psychological change as a consequence of the illusory impression these foreign settings have on those that determine to force difference.

Lyubov’s journey from her home to her cabin was not exceptional in any way and so will be omitted here. The writer will omit space and time in a similar fashion; entirely derivatively. As was likely anticipated, the reader will notice the tense pervert to the present as sardonic snows imprison the homes of those who do not expect visitors, deriding their frivolity through the simple logic of their presence. The task of ignoring this irony proves laborious as Lyubov climbs through a crusted window that impounds the alien cabin, desolate and ugly even after a month’s company. Lumbering through congested water vapour, Lyubov’s melodramatic groans could be heard by anyone within a 100 metre radius, though no one is listening. She shields her eyes from the glaring truth that ricochets from the snow to the sun; here, she is more alone than she could ever have conceived and here, she cannot escape her cynicism through the melodious soundscape of small talk. She is staggering confused through an empty wasteland, trying to remember why she so detested the cradling heat that radiated warm and true from that distant home she so desperately struggled to forget. The predator that is isolation had begun to feast on the flesh of Lyubov’s psyche, engendering a race between her thoughts, disconcerting them, watching them indifferently as they twitch in despair and groan restlessly, a futile plea, like that of a wounded deer in the desert snow, or like men who succumb to alcoholism and during every hangover, apologise to those they have humiliated and repeat their fictitious aims to quit. 

To Lyubov’s credit, she did disqualify some contestants, ridding them of their psychological potency through an often repeated, altogether simple desire to get home to her motherland. But the reader mustn’t forget that Lyubov’s youthful naivety rendered her dangerously susceptible to insecurity and dangerously immune to patriotism, and so she was divorced from her mother as swiftly as her body swung from her front gate to that decisive night, dissolved by the ominous glow of street bulbs that even I confess once lured me from my humble beginnings. And here, in the indifference of the Russian winter, Lyubov met another onslaught of psychological carnage, glaring and brutal, transforming her knowledge into suspicion as she trudged back to the lonely cabin. True, my protagonist did well to fend off the prying claws of uncertainty for a time, though I would be unworthy as writer if I exaggerated the extent of this feat. A month into her stay, Lyubov undertook the painstaking task of retrieving those portions of her memory she had so cruelly banished, grasping desperately at dimming conversations with those she once derided in repulsion, mocking their vanity, ignoring the parts of herself that she saw within them. For this is the irony of cynicism in that cynics deplore only those traits they wish to bury within themselves; conceit, naivety, self-doubt, susceptibility. 

I wish I could give the reader an ending to this all too common story of a directionless youth who tries in vain to defeat the type of self-doubt that is so troubling and yet so integral to social encounters jarring and inevitable. No, I will leave this subsequent excerpt from the life of Lyubov to another writer who, in some maddening chaos, tries to make sense of the chronology of a person, clinging to a singular event and attempting to justify it as significant. 

II

The writer, on erecting space between one event and the next, need not justify their absence. No, the writer is only responsible for the stories they tell, never for those they imply. These vacant planes will roll on indeterminably into distance that cannot necessarily be defined as distance until the writer decides to pen another chronicle. And it is for this reason that I kept writing, for I am not obliged to write my own. No, I will not patronise my reader by explicitly acknowledging the relationship between this excerpt and the last. I must have faith in my reader’s intellect to write to them, lest I become seduced by the characteristic coping mechanism of writers who authorise the self-effacing simplification of their process, making concessions for readers that do not exist. I believe it is only writers who have been tantalised by this strategy that can traverse the space between the pen and the reader, for it is only these writers that have learnt to write to themselves; unashamed, naked. I, myself, am still working at it. Enough from me.

The excerpt that is to unfold upon these pages is grounded in the inner northern Kalininsky district of Petersberg. The night is empty and it sits patiently with the street debris, awaiting the apathetic footfall of morning commuters. It is October and so howling winds swallow the audibility of human voices, human footsteps, behaving similarly to those who make an uncomfortable amount of sound when they eat, though less rhythmic. Our old friend Lyubov has taken advantage of the overfed city, capitalising on its bloated belly, edging her way through a front gate that she cannot call her own. Her figure effortlessly negotiates with this barrier that separates permissible from impermissible, right from wrong.

Lyubov, the invader. By now, the reader may have succumbed to the objectless curiosity of this metamorphosis from escapee to intruder. Those readers should remember that some questions remain answerless for good reason, or perhaps for no reason at all. It is only with maturity that we begin to tolerate the unresolved. I, personally, cannot attest to such wisdom. Long ago, when I was informed of this event, I interrupted, demanding an explanation of what had happened in-between; what had caused such vast transformation. I was met with a taciturn glare that regarded wall only, seemingly mocking my romanticisation of the in-between by exposing it for the discomfort it is empowered to evoke. Time prolonged but was likely brief until our excerpt was mercifully resumed.

Inordinate adrenaline, speechless footsteps, folded shoulders, darting eyes, an unlocked window; the archetypical burglary. In and out, rewarded for risk, pray your crime was not evident. Still, it is generally acknowledged that archetypes exist only as vague guides to narration, and they will be, in all probability, challenged. Alas, Lyubov realised the anomalous nature of her felony too late, for her shimmied motion through the alien window was interrupted by two hands bigger than her own, inviting her into the supposed crime-scene. And suddenly one crime became another as Lyubov’s limbs were taped together and thrown into a vacant corner, struggling through muffled screams. This metamorphosis need not be elaborated either, for it happened in one swift motion, as though it didn’t require explanation, like all those unexplained phenomenon that simply exist because they exist. 

Lyubov, the kid. Napped from a house she could not call her own, pleading almost in soliloquy into two menacing eyes that were entirely unforgiving of the void between where she was from and where she was.

-Please, I beg of you, let me go, I am the daughter of an aristocrat and he will pay generously for my release…Please, I’m begging you, I cannot take it, forgive me, forgive me…Forgive me, I have sinned and I am sorry, I will do anything…Kill me, please just kill me. 

Such pleas fell into the chasm of darkness our abductor had constructed, assuring no glimmer of light could find its way through the fateful window. Cigarettes burns began to populate the arms of our ostensible burglar, deep lacerations sought to deface her otherwise smooth complexion, portions of her otherwise long hair were devoured by the terrorist razor. Of course, physical deformities always seem to pale in comparison to those psychological. Hours stretched indeterminably into days that were marked by a torment Lyubov herself told me she believed was entirely unexplored, even by those who have truly suffered. On one of these days, Lyubov awoke from a nightmare-laden slumber to dead silence, though she could not tell if it was night. Nor could she tell if it was silent or if she was dead, for her malnourished body had begun to prey on her sensory perceptions, deluding her into uncertainty. During such bouts of insanity, Lyubov almost glimpsed freedom, pretending through closed eyelids that she could see streams of daylight flood the crime-scene, a sure sign that her captor would himself be captured. But he would not allow this, and he beat the beast of uncertainty out of her until she was assured of where she was.

A loud thud followed by ugly laughter and uneven footsteps interrupted this almost tranquil silence. Our tormentor strolled into the room wearing an unnervingly sincere smile and held before him a treasured belonging of Lyubov’s; a framed photograph of herself and her late Koshechka. Uncannily, this was one of the only possessions that accompanied her on the voyage the reader is aware of to the Buryat province of southern Russia. The sight of her Koshechka sent Lyubov into another fit of uncertainty which was hastily clarified through a twisted smirk.

-I am merely an imitator.

And, indeed, when Lyubov glanced from her trusted possession to the voice speaking to her, she saw her reflection in the cursed eyes of her victim, her tormentor. 

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Not based on true events:

The lining of your stomach is torn from its home as you dread the imaginary interaction between the one you love and the fictional other. The way I describe it, this process sounds quick and almost painless. This is a largely inncurate explanation, since it only accounts for the parts of your tissue that successfully detach themselves from the rest of your tissue. The initial rip leaves behind remnants of flesh that descend into a tormenting limbo which rests conveniently between truth and skepticism. Other strands hold fast, denying change. And you, too, have been ripped from everything you knew to be home, wandering through an indifferent darkness; one that does not pretend to pity you or your meagre metaphors as you stumble aimless, alone. They are laughing and they draw closer; apprehensive as they avoid disclosed intention. You are aching, lying on your side, cradling your stomach beneath sheets that once enclosed the space between the two of you but can now only logically increase it. The irony of your fixation is glaring, stabbing into your stomach, ridding you of your capacity to move but equally to sleep. One of these ironies lingers long after you are initially invited by the impossibly ironic darkness that is death; as he becomes inexplicably drawn to another, you become inexplicably withdrawn from him. You, the erratic junky, shaking and sweating and swearing at the cruel space that gapes between you and him, familiarising yourself with the painful irony of your own creation. 

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

To whom it may concern

Strawberry blonde blue eyes bright and funny; brown hair brown eyes meek and funny; brown eyes blonde hair unhatched before opaque autumn skies deepen this flaxen mop that protects the nape of your neck until you morph with the fluidity of seasons into a brunette animated and funny. Or like me, you are born with a full head of hair and I mock the resemblance you bear to an orangutan and of course you are funny. This is an unfinished list of the combinations that hypothetically marked the hypothetical ember that burnt like it paled in the base of my body the vessel. And you too are unfinished and you remain the eternal hypothetical and I’m sorry little soul because I didn’t have the means to cradle you and you fell out like all the other little souls that were never meant to be and so weren’t. Today it is my mother’s birthday and there is something sickening about my inability or unwillingness to write to you until now because you are not to be recalled only on those days that are emblematic of your existence you are to be remembered every day please forgive me for I will write again. 

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

Night and day

Night is like day except it is dark and still. Other than these qualities, night mocks day, reproducing the rhythms that carry the sun from the east to the west. People often distinguish day from night through the depth of night, though in doing so they ignore the intensity of daylight, seeping indeterminably into the distance, burning bright and profound as it illuminates experience. People have also claimed that the difference between night and day is not seen but felt; the velvet night necessarily opposes the harsh day. These people are mistaken, too, for they neglect the animal violence that lingers in the night, and likewise the subdued force of day when we sleep in and gradually open stiff eyelids, inviting the warm glow of mid-morning to enchant us with its repetitive unfamiliarity. 

People often claim that the sun and moon exist in a forlorn relationship, infinitely longing to meet, tragically familiar with one another’s absence as time elapses. These claims romanticise their aversion. In reality, the sun relishes in the total deprivation of the moon. She gleams proud as day, dreading the return of her tormentor. The moon is relentless, jeering at the sun, deriding her movements as plagiarism, scorning her poverty of imagination, laughing at her indignant responses. 

It becomes evident if you listen to the orifices that yawn between these declarations of contempt that the moon is unhappiest of all. Paradoxically, these cavities are muted by the forceful insistence of the moon, who every night attempts to conceal his spite for himself by translating it into spite for her. This form of translation proves feasible given the uniformity of their respective luminosities. And in the lifeless night he gets to convincing himself of the intoxicating illusion, sipping insatiably from the noise of his own voice, keeping himself company, stumbling into half-remembered half-forgotten opinions. He is an insomniac, crashing into oblivious objects that populate his peripheral vision as he resents the rich vitality of day that eclipses his every waking night.