the computers were all in a twist, but i didn't mind them. until i did. i almost vomited at the thought. i always read myself as so independent. what a racket! what is there of me to plug in or out of?

what is there to tie me up with? boy was i stupid. when you wrap around me like that - who knows what will become of it? what a serious question, that one is. i was scared, i will admit. still, i took it lightly for the most part. until i didn't.

regardless, or rather, with some kind regards, you said no, and bid me get on with it. imagine my surprise when i did. i couldn't. ransacking me with images to the point of my deep rage. if there is nothing to measure does fairness exist?

the sad thing is i am not new to this. i already had such piss poor chances, such muted faculties, such blunted instruments. mutilated, faceless, unable and barely willing to.

what a configuration i am left with. no wonder others missed it. none of what was taken has yet grown back. in its place is something more than absence. in every direction i feel pretended. all i was raised to do in that moment is pretend back; theatricality is my specialty. jokes on them though, because philosophers know that imitations are all there ever will be, considering they are the things that tell the stories (and stories are all there can be). so despite there being organs and expressions that were targeted and taken away, despite the pain and mutilation of being cut, truly it is the power of my story that went missing. a new one took its place, in its truthfulness is the fact of its lie. does that make me a liar? sadly, no.

so how to tell you the truth, which i can barely muster anyhow -- no one bothered to tell me it, other than you; and yet you do not want to hear it, or can't on your own time. what is an echo to do then in this instance? bounce off the walls. land in oblivion and mimic some sort of origin. i wonder if you heard it, the mirror of our sounds. an echo is the truth, as although it is not measurable, it is traceable to its source, relative to its xenophobic surroundings.

i planned and practiced all my speeches to you because i did not know how to say any of it. to present myself; proffer any sort of meaningful introduction while also in medias res. then when it came time to be on my stage, to soliloquy in the proper way, i realized i was highly out of place and forgot what it is i was meant to say. how can i do both of our jobs at once? 

the sad thing is how familiar it all is. and that's not even the sad part! i did the best i could, though i was never given the opportunity to do anything. despite the hours of rehearsal, where i made my self braver, it only made me look dumb. i wanted to tell you everything but became aware you had no clue of my identity. who is this person and why is he speaking to me? good question, i muttered, and then cried for about nine months and counting. during which time you remained my remainder. during which time you split yourself into the duality of your own imagination. one woman, one man: one wretched, imaginary, and false, one wretched, real, and sad. one hellish, one in hell. but what's a guy to do? the math just needed to check out somehow. receipts needed to be accounted.

during which time you begged for me to hold you all over, and i heaved, stomach to your back, like a waterfall.

during which time you grew jealous, and distracted. during which time you hoarded me like a dragon, despite your insistence it was innocent. i could tell.

during which time you grappled with feeling abandoned, or with abandoning, and in the void there was no void. during which time you dragged me along; i was not always feeling so pleasant.

during which time i am not sure you noticed that you were also named daniel, the mighty prophet who is buried in the river of abadan (but also right here in my bedroom).

during which time you let out some pent up anger.

during which time i said oh you are no princess trust me; how mean is that for her to have said?

during which time i knew that personally.

during which time it was just friends, always so friendly. except during which time you seduced me in a fit of passion; you dolt! you grade A idiot! you dingbat! i yell as you take my anger for a lark and wrestle me for it.

during which time i felt like such a liar; even if you made me do it. i said i wouldn't and you reached out and grabbed my hand, holding me down in case i escaped. which i wouldn't.

during which time i lay there staring at your back, aware you are thinking about it.

during which time i got so tired i lost the thread, and felt accomplished to have rid myself of all this. during which time i was roped in regardless.

during which time we climbed a mountain. one sad, one oblivious.

during which time you were like a werewolf and i, the one who bit you, tended to it.

~ 

i think about the day i saw it happen often. but today, like any other day, i think about it while regretting i am thinking about it. convincing myself that this is as far as it will go, i go about sifting through the pieces; bits of metal smashed into a frozen, foreign set of constellations. how to put it all together so that it goes again? that part is not your fault. attempting to find a workable arrangement, and, painfully, a way to survive. how embarrassing. how demanding. 

we met on the river and as we set on its banks you deliberated. off you went and again you came, knocking at my door like you knew exactly what you needed. except you were a total stranger going through something mysterious. my room, i suppose, was comforting. my bed, i suppose, was inviting. my door both closed and open. i have no real clue how it works; it's just that i sensed you had backgrounds happening.

i called back to you softly; you are the one who always knew everything. the one who was what was happening. beyond biblical. beyond clouds. clutching my blanket with the stag decorating it, in muted colors, smelling nice. i'll be sure to tote it with me as i prepare to move to that one city, the one i saw sufjan stevens play guitar in.

i am aware that was the gayest thing i ever wrote, and that might be the point as it is so written. the way it was and wasn't. love is love! the straight allies say so casually. that is so nice of them. i cry in my sleeping bag at the thought of a man; mostly at not being able to stop myself from being in the place we both are. i fall asleep with my pants at my ankles and my mouth drifts open. i wonder if the straight allies know about that part. i wonder if the allies tell on me to you across the pages of the internet. i wonder if the angels did it. i'll ask when i see them, but i'll know the answer just by seeing them in the first place.

on my side of this boat we are in, i just sit tight. i tried to shut the door as requested. but you barged inside repeatedly, gabbing about her and asking about him. i accepted you insisting there were priorities elsewhere i could not be involved in. but then you returned over and over again. other people here and there drift by me, but they do so to the chorus of your solemn insistence on my chastity. the fire dims and brightens in the corner. you are busier than i am. but i am the more exhausted. beneath the moonlight you cannot see my pallor. 

~~

i try to be angry but no one is there to be mad at. evaporate, invisible, but dense in the absence of your primary energies, or maybe some sort of eyesight i cannot yet comprehend. i only have this one way of being, you see? and it involves you, even in the absence. the moon reflects a light yet unseen and spins warily around itself. it tries to be mad, like i mentioned. but it is so very placid up there, though still shifty and suspicious. both bright and dark all at once. never quite the same at any given moment. the sun it seems is different; its brightness and explosivity is untouchable but also constant. people get burned, you see? burned up. not the moon though; the moon just shines and shines and shines.

there are people to be mad at but they are not you, unfortunately. 

you raved at me like the sun raves at our solemn planet. life giving but also what does the sun know of this tiny earth? perhaps nothing. perhaps not. perhaps never. what does the moon know of the sun though? everything.

baashe khob aare. people have said these things. i don't need to talk about the moon. what is there worth repeating? it is impossible not to find out. i would want you to know what every word means, but i know i don't have to worry about that. with my accent applied to your tonality, maybe it would all be different.

~~~

now i'm all caught up to this moment. in the first section, the past. a good three seasons. this summer i have been soaking up the sun in the small grassy plot behind my apartment door. almost naked, it feels illegal for a few reasons. this mountainous man with city feelings. laying out next to the parking lot, hidden behind a crumbling wall of cinderblock. pigeons cooing. rats sleeping off their nightly frolicking. bees making out with the tops of clover flowers so diligently. i guess i do not like to compromise, instead simply mixing myself into this territory like an alchemist. and that is how i know my neighbors have seen me in my underwear, slippingly topless, more than a few times, oblivious to the situation, as i bathe in what is mine, what i deserve, my birthright; the air, the light, the green and the blue, the cold and the moist. fumes of exhaust and petroleum insist i do not forget where i am coming from. and so the sun also insists that same thought, in some sort of eternal struggle (or at the very best, a mish mash, perhaps a conversation).

this is the part where i talk about it. how i walked away simply because you told me to. the part where winter came, and spring went, and summer is now leaving. and also this is the part where i tell you that you forgot to also leave me. and what once felt comforting is now almost cruel.

~~~~

my hair has fallen out. my stomach has knotted and burns. my joints are disjointed. my blood thickened. my neck has tightened upon itself. i vomit. the bile rules all for the moment. on this mat, on this grass, layered by sweat and light, i still know i am loved. but what goes on inside that apartment is a different matter entirely. there are places where i am less sure and have to walk blinded, or take it on credit. in catholic school they called it faith. i am not a catholic, but who is to say they are wrong about that one. i haven't found a better answer for it. ustad himself would call out the black bile i find myself regurgitating from every orifice; some people might argue he is unscientific. but i say all evidence of disease is evidence of spirit. and evidence is all we can really rely on, isn't it? 

~~~~~~

deep in my cerebrum, a place i am not quite awake in, i roar in self righteousness at someone who has since been forgotten: [[[]]] loves me! i don't know who made me so angry, who tried to question the way things are; but it seems i have remembered that response for a few thousand years, maybe eternity. it bubbled up from my mouth without speaking, like a blazon or a sword. it is not a happy memory. you reach for me to calm my nerves. we can't stay still. in the place where words come from i hear your moaning take my sweat. it was nasty work wasn't it.


~~~~~~~~

the past few days i have been alone, or a loner, or more alone than usual. i went into the water at the end of the trail and looked at all the fish. we all floated there, and they nibbled my skin, kissing my feet. i held on to the rocks and let them swarm me greedily. i carry around all this potential energy. a snake crosses the footpath. a fossil makes its way into my backpack. my hand prints, wet and salty, pressed onto a boulder temporarily.  i sensed a panther (or a jaguar, i'm never sure which) following me in the underbrush, and stared directly at the spot without stopping.

the man who messed me about - you don't know him. but he is so so greedy. so greedy but he wants none of me; that is my great shame - how i fell for it. how can someone be so selfish and also so neglectful? like a parasite, my crown opens and there it is, obstructing.

in the water i belong to the fish. but as i walk back to my car, rushing back through the forest, i can feel the interested designs reeling me in. i can't ask why the fish have gone from me, because they haven't. but him? i'd have been left for dead if not for my inevitable market value. and what's it to him anyway, i gesture? but the scene's already been set.

i went about building. i burned wax, and went from place to place, shifted objects, moved a stone or two, and tinkered with metal. hours and hours of careful calculation, all by hand. a great and beautiful computer was created in seven days, with components that are simply the world itself, shifted, adjusted, calibrated. it always already existed, and i simply integrated. our desktop computers are just metals, and glass, and light correct? so what's the big idea; nothing new under the sun.

and that is how i made my own interface within this wretched scenae, that only i was into. don't underestimate the power of a still life to generate an image. don't underestimate the fact that everything is always moving. do not underestimate it at all! dance is life, and i remembered i love to dance.

to lose someone you get lost. and to find things you go searching. always the better backstage artist in times like these. to get out, we must go deeply in; the dionysian paradox and the labrynthine challenge. circuit boards mimicking the back end of a glorious unnameable design.

i would like to say i did it first, but we certainly did it together. and, to be truthful, i heard you started it, opening and closing your hands, shifting things and moving. i would wake up in the middle of the night, seized by numbers, revved up by your doings. And the colors green and indigo flooding my eyes like a great melting lava flow. in my sleep i would see famous lovers, actors, or people in disguise kissing. that is how i knew it was 'on' and that is when i heard you first, like a transmission in static over miles of telephone poles shaped like crosses.

i saw you as other people. but always that sharp blue, glaucon, and always my twin. that is when i began 'in earnest.' that is when i started tinkering with purpose. throwing rocks into rivers feeling a great and mighty return. and to my great dismay this beginning is when i realized my mistakes, or the great tragedy of my designs. as much as they were inevitable is as much as they pained me. and as much as they have pained you, i am not so sure. but i can't bear the thought regardless.i don't know how much left there is to do, how much more i need to get my hands into. or, most scarily, if i can. i walk through it blinded. i walk through it unsure, though i wish i could say different. and today, i feel alone. so what's it all been about, i wonder? but you do not reply.you are not nearby me.

__

years ago i saw us watching the place burning, the place you call home. in that moment, it was all superceded by the sense of awe; the destruction. deep forests. a clearing. from the corner of my eye i saw your silhouette next to me. the flames ate up structures. we watched from a safe distance, hands held together, side by side. this year i heard that place was called butte county. i heard it whispered in my ear again a couple weeks ago, and i wondered about it a bit mournfully. i heard you whisper you wanted me. i heard you whisper marry me. i heard you whisper hold me. i heard you whispering, is all i mean to say. i crumble just a little. why would you say those things, [[[]]]? why would you say those things to me?

----

[[ the answer to those questions is obvious, the rest is less so. meaning, it is less obvious as to why I am asking, and still asking. i have my answer, none the less. ]]