I galloped down the path to the castle. A blade of grass grew in slowmo. My hair flowed like pouring water. I hoped for someone to mess up, for an instrument to slip out of a hand and BANG! I want to experience something real.
The conductor comes in and out,
in and out,
and in and out.
I mentally whisper:
“Clap, Clap, Clap”
Keeping up the beat, bringing something to the table.
I’m lining the table with Tomato Ketchup, laying it on thick—no one interrupting my creative process.
A dash of mayo. I’ve dreamt this before, the touch of grace.
Chicken fingers greased my tips and now I’m writing on serviettes my phone number.
Someone called.
We were both taken aback by each other’s voices when we said “Hi.”
So, we stayed with each other in silence, across the ether, for a good half an hour, and then hung up.
The chicken-winged silence greasing up my telephone, my ear ending the call.
The waiter left the chicken plate next to me and I say thank you keeping eye contact with the canvas.
I pinch a finger with my fingers, and I put it where it needs to go,
then again,
then again,
then some sauce,
then some sauce,
A whirl.
What do we have?
A sea of condiments.
I scratch my eyebrow with the chicken finger now an extension of my fingers and look for possibilities.
When things become too precious,
too personal,
it’s the beginning of the end.
Smearing chicken fat over it will do it.
I took my draft and my deal into the café to that effect.
I dipped my tie in a cup of quoffi.
This plume is a pain in my ass. If I press any harder I might break the space-time continuum.
My fist now on the adjacent business behind the bookshelf,
like Matthew McConaughey, I’m interstellar.
On another,
spectral fourth dimensional note,
I’ve been trying to catch my shadow lately.
First,
I do a lap around the park slowly and then a faster one to catch it.
So far,
it hasn’t worked but I was,
|_ _ _ _ _ _| this close.
My shadow is a metaaaphor.
Since ‘The Return of The Nokia’ texting sucks too much life force and my commitment issues are forced to face themselves.
Romulus and Remus suckling from my wolverine tit.
The phone rings.
A balloon let loose from a stand at the country fair made it through the atmosphere into space.
It is never the right time to pick it up, to hold it down.
The main lounging bit of the museum has a chequered floor and nuclear families playing straight are sprouting left and right.
I hear check-mate from this blond in his 40s and laugh because he thought I was a pawn but I’m actually a queen and now he’s totally fucked.
I kiss him, and his wife kisses me, and the truth is out in the open, and they fly away as friends after agreeing on some pretty liberal co-parenting.
Walking around the medieval tapestry section,
I travel to a simpler time were there was an unknown.
When going out of town was fucking crazy and not going was, well, reasonable.
But now the remainder of the world is this FOMO ghost that runs up and down the corridor,
screaming;
“There’s no excusee, flyyyy to Turkey with Ryanair for 25 cents.”
Thighs sticking to the faux-black-leather sofa, it’s spring so sweat could but hasn’t set in yet.
The glass table is making little rainbows on the wall and I’m feeling cat-like, my tail slowly wagging up and down, up and down, content, self-assured, independent, all the words, in a list, that cats don’t care about, and neither do I, cause I’m a cat.
meow.
The burgundy sofa looks with disapproval because I haven’t sat on it for a couple of weeks but it’s her fault, she’s too stiff to lounge, and I’m a lounger now.
I’ve been trying to reason with her, make her relax, told her that life is a joke, that money isn’t real, and that we’re all going to end up dead anyway but she’s too set up in her ways and tbh I’ve given her too much of my time already.
I’m a fox on a hill. Drinking 1 pound 75 pence wine out of a tall glass makes me think that everything is possible, World Peace, The end of Capitalism, Etcetera,
Among me there is a graveyard of empty glasses stuffed with crisp packets sitting like flowers on top of tombstones.
I take a break from the sweetness and sourness of the grape;
I hold my cup high and say, “To the living” and spill some on the dry hearth.
—