axar n.

10:16 - I hang the clothes out one by one on the railing of our staircase. I use the ornamental curves of its design to hang smaller pieces; the larger ones I shake out, set to shape, and drape over the handle.

10:17 - I love the ritual of it, the care taken for every single item, nothing rushed, nothing crumpled, by the time the clothes dry they are ready to be put on the body. What body? My tired body, here, your tired body, there, separated for now, tired more than ever for now.

10:18 - It's quick, then, the disintegration of smells and routines and fondnesses. Sometimes in your eyes I see a flicker of resentment, upset that I misinterpret as anger, what use is this anger, why is it directed at me, I don't understand.

10:19 - In our misunderstandings we keep missing each other, it's like we are stepping away from the center line, we don't collide, we don't meet, something keeps slipping past, it's not meant to be like this, but it is like this, but it's not meant to be, it feels wrong, I feel deranged by it.

10:20 - When I try to touch my own body I break apart my sadness into seeds that propagate. It's too painful, even more painful than someone else's hand, with someone else I can eat their presence.

10:21 - With myself I have only myself, unbearable. I am sitting in my throne of five hundred wet clothes. It is raining outside, lightly, I can't hear it but I can feel it. There's a catch in my neck from something I did in my sleep.

21:25 - I remember the other most beautiful sunsets in the world I had the chance to see so many of them alone and so many of them with my beautiful friends whose faces I have lost in remembering but whose laughter I remember, a hand pressed against mine in the metro, or a cigarette shared between us as we weave in and out of a crowded street.

21:26 - It was so long ago how can I still know these details but I do somehow in fact I remember better than ever the long-agos the missed-outs. I crossed out so many letters from my text but they were still there when I counted them. Well that's enough for now isn't it. Sweet sweet love that never ends.

21:27 - Falling out of love is quick but falling back into love is difficult it requires overcoming many hurdles. I am not accustomed to this laborious task but I work dedicatedly towards it, I know I can do it, how, but I know, but how, but I am certain that I can, and it is this certainty that I lay the tracks down on.

21:28 - I understand the passage of time the same as I ever have the same as the first time I conceived of time. It came easily to me even though it was meant to be challenging but I know the difference between minutes and seconds because I watched the numbers change on the microwave screen.

21:29 - The first of my beloved machines into whose face I would peer and watch the bottle spin in the golden light and then press the button right before the DING! to check the temperature. Then climb the steps down from the microwave back into the groundspace, the housespace, surface shared by everyone else.

23:58 - Prodigal daughter missing all their fucking calls if I never get to speak to my father again I will be all the better for it. It should have happened years ago the branch snapped before I leaned any weight on it.

23:59 - Instead another grand betrayal of my lifetime another misstep I will have to hold on to, hold myself against, hold against the world, I will have to bear this weight forever, the weight of not-forgiving. Somehow the more difficult one.

00:00 - I am somehow the more difficult one in every equation as much as I small myself as much as I deter myself. The largeness of my desire terrifies and shames me which is not what I want to feel at this age. I do not want to cower in the face of consequences I want to throw myself into any sea that can take me.

00:01 - In that I want to be free. Free from what? From responsibilities, tethers, caregiving, etc.? No, but free to touch, to feel love, to feel loved, etc. If I could go back and restructure our entire framework I would because I know better now I know myself better now.

19:25 - What does it mean to start writing a new book how do I know if this is the one. This is the one I know it. To me it has the feeling of tearing a fruit apart. My hands are sticky and the air is sweet. It's unforgiveable. Impossible not to think of birth, which means it is impossible not to think of death. I love the end.

19:26 - I love. The end. Holding hands with my friends is the best story I ever read. How many more how many more times will I get to rest my head against your shoulder. Beautiful new friend who clatters around my kitchen in the dark at five a.m. what did I do without you what did I do before you.

19:27 - Cleaning the same house I have lived in for years makes it new the same way shaving my head makes me new the same way waking up and looking out the window makes the world new these are such simple and perhaps petty truths but I love them I do. How easy it is to start over. What am I hoping for when I reach out in the darkness who is going to be there to press their cheek against me.

19:28 - Old friends and new they will be there with their arms open and their memories charged with decades' of knowledge that has slipped me by. I have been told so many times that I am full of lies that I no longer trust what I have said, done, thought, been through, but my record keepers are faithful, they remind me of me, they are me sometimes more concretely than myself. I write in the most unbearably small hand.

19:29 - So many years apart but I knew in my heart I knew it with such belief that we would trace the same arc along the horizon me and you who are inevitably bound to one another. This I know is love too but it's not a love that I want to encourage it's a love I just have to live with.

19:30 - A love I live with the way I live with my limp, one leg dragging behind the other, my knee that collapses without warning, I live with it, I anticipate its failures, I go so far as to even accept it, I take care of it, that's what it's like to love you now, I don't have a choice but to tend to it.

10:16 - Gertrude Stein says to act as if there is no center. I agree, there is no center, the arcs flow from anywhere I load my weapon, it could be my shoulder, my waist, my elbow, it could be my solitude, my dark delicious solitude, it melts on the tongue, it's bewildering and beautiful. 10:17 - I just knew it I just knew you would change too if I changed. In some ways you are as you have always been as you have been for more than a decade my ideal companion. You change so rapidly so abruptly only I can keep up, I who also changes so rapidly so abruptly with no warning whatsoever.

10:18 - I am scavenging for your new name are you scavenging for mine. Do you want to know what my hands are like now they are stronger than ever. I want to know what your hands are like now I want to know what you smell like is it the same enchanting perfume or is it something new. Would I find it repulsive now.

10:19 - Our youth is over but our you keeps going. So many years separated no contact on this plane and yet when you pull at the thread that ties us I feel it, I pull back, I tug harder, you respond to my message, you are so far away, can you feel me, I know you can, I know you can.

10:20 - I know you can because I can too, I can feel you all the time. I barely remember your face, your small (?) eyes, your crooked (?) teeth, your large (?) nose. Is your hair long or short. Do you have a soft belly now or is it blank, flat, grumbling.

10:21 - Because you knew how to hate me I know you knew how to love me unconditionally, whatever of me I gave you you had a powerful reaction to. Parsing through old text I realise how much I pushed back at you, how honest I was, how I said: I imagined my future and it stunned me to think that I would spend my life with someone so insensitive. 10:22 - I said: I want to be alone, I cannot do this. I just don't want to. I don't know how you responded because all that remains of the archive is my side, your text is gone, you are gone from it, there are blanks where I can imagine what you must have said. 10:23 - How I would have loved you if you were a woman, well, did you become one, are you one, were you always, did I challenge that in you, did I push something too hard, did I hurt you. It doesn't matter, we are both where we always were, in opposition, which is unbelievably intimate.

lo ve W e tr ieD i t

A ll n O lo ng er Fr i end

i c an cA l l but

I fe el Y r he a rt & fe el

m Y he ar T

le ash Ed

Button's got four holes ready to be filled, diagonal/crossed, up-down-up-down, thrilled

to be pleasure-swilled like that, 'solutely drowned, Button sucked, strapped, struck, beat, bound,

boys surround him, if two's a party Button's got 'round twenty now, he's slick, swanky, he's hot

-shit clanking his tin head against the cage, don't get him wrong, Button's dead-serious, he's aged

here, in the "scene", underground, where dark eyes find openings 'nd needles push thru sound, the guys

know him inside-out, they kiss his reddened scars, they make love to all his mouths, they don't care

who Button's been, for real, they see him, they get him, they stuff him to the brim, don't mistake this for some shallow thing, it's Button's whole life on the upswing four holes agape, it's no joke, it's how he attaches himself to surfaces, sows

himself in, latches part to part, a simple heart, then start

Aren't ya running late Button? O says Aren't I making you sooo late you second-rate freak tied

up so small. Button mewls as he unsprawls eyes dazed crawls across the dirty room. I'm AWOL

he laughs, I'm A Wall, ha ha, I'm blanking out e'ryone these days, other than you O, I'm devout

to your whip. The fuck off your knees O commands Get your ass to the soiree. My hands my hands,

Button tugs at the rope with his teeth, gets free, admires the burn, O I love hope, I love indignities,

ha ha he he, O, kiss me hard before I go, O o O, kiss kiss! Then drives to B's house in a rush, turns missed,

soooo late, whatever, who gives a fuck Button's all out of luck all the time all the way. I called

B says I's worried 'bout you why didn't you answer. Button shimmies to the floor singing I'm yr tiny dancer

out come the moves The Worst Moves he calls them clacking hooves, springing little twigs, skirts the hem

of the room with his long-long broom wipes the edge clean draws another line up his buttonnose fledg-

ling verse of song hedging bets against himself. B says It's been a while where ya been. That's another secret

I'll never tell XO XO. Button Girl. Ha ha ho ho Button squirts incandescent spurts of wisdom

from the top of the stairs. F opens her mouth to catch. A & A laugh and laugh. Oh is that pointing South

no it's North you idiot. Where ya been Button where we thought you'd moved again. Nah just busy here & there

Button yells Stop talking man let's shake our pants pop these pills let's tremble dawn we're all transplants

in this fucking beautiful world did you see the light did you see it. The Best Light. Who's that lady I'd

dreamt her up last night I'd kill for her I'd die for her mid-flight I'd do anything am I her kinda guy

let's find out. Button shoots his shot far-out across the Milky Way. She chasing clout

man she only linking arms with the band who cares Button come away and and

did you see it. What. The light. Did you see it the shadow light. No I missed it where were you did you see it

I was gone awhile did you miss me. No but Button did you see. See what. The dark light. No I was looking at her she

moved like a trout in the sea. Button baby calm down here's a handkerchief for your nose it's bleeding.

15:29 - I don't like to leave things incomplete I like to see them through all the way to the very end. Is that always possible so far yes it has been. Then what fails me now that didn't before. I remember so clearly the feeling on being on that road, so many years ago, that road still throbbing under my feet, so many lives ago.

15:30 - I always listened to myself why do I not listen to myself now. I can see it so clearly in my mind: a small house a small bed and perfect lighting. I'll knit the lampshades myself. I'll buy a record player myself.

15:31 - I will have a corner to read in and another to write in. When I fall in love I will call them over at night and make the room smell so good. The temperature will always be perfect and the sheets so soft. I'll organise my closet so well this time I will always know where everything is. I'll open myself up I'll open my house up so good.

15:32 - There will always be some kind of breeze some kind of movement. Sunset hours beautiful light through thin cotton curtains. I'll listen to the same album on repeat every morning I'll wash my own dishes and wipe my own surfaces. This is a life I always wanted my own life designed bit by bit.