ice feet

two girls are standing outside. they could be twins with those beautiful black strands flowing down their backs, blowing all over the place, wispy but strong; cloves in hands, then mouths, offering their elegance to the wet wind. they stare into the dark sky, searching for something they’ll never find, at least not there. after the lights dim, they slowly walk in opposing directions, away from each other without the slightest pause for a glance backward, heels clacking loudly in the street. they’ll never see each other again, these things never last. nothing ever lasts, even with all wires exposed, mouths open and hands tightly clasped together. you want to say I FUCKING LOVE YOU but your mouth’s dry and your teeth hurt and your throat’s closed off and then your stomachs doing backflips all the way home while you cry silently and long to cut the frustration out of your skin. now where are you gonna put your words?
he’s sick of always checking the time and wants to throw this stupid watch away. tick tock tick tock ticktockticktock, constantly reminding him of each second that passes, each drop of blood that flows one way, then the other way, in a circle, tick tock tick tock blood drop blood drop. it would be difficult to make a life out of this bullshit. there used to be a cat, but now there are just balls of dust collecting in the corner, stacked on top of each other like seventh chords, climbing all the way to the ceiling filled with holes and stained with watermarks from the lovers upstairs. each time they soak, the tub overflows and paints a pretty little picture on the floor, a lonely picture on his ceiling. there also used to be a girl. they used to be the ones painting the pictures on the floor but then she swallowed a few too many and it was all over. she used to warn him about that day but he never listened, and now when he looks back at all the words he shoved back into her mouth, he wishes they would have jumped off that building together holding hands, maybe painted one last picture on the ground together. staring at the rows of scripts on the crooked bookshelf, he realizes that nobody’s left and nothing’s considered selfish anymore. reach. on the telly, a girl lays down on the bed, a girl with a cat, a face with a smile. hope. there’s too much fucking dust in this room, he thinks to himself, as he gets up and begins to look for the broom.

experience

We are separated from and related to one another physically.  Persons as embodied beings related to each other through the medium of space.  And we are separated and joined by our differing perspectives, educations, backgrounds, organizations, group loyalties, affiliations, ideologies, socioeconomic class interests, temperaments.  These social “things” that unite us are by the same token so many *things*, so many social figments that come between us.  But if we could strip away all the exigencies and contingencies, and reveal to each other our naked presence?  If you take away everything, all the clothes, the disguises, the crutches, the grease paint, also the common projects, the games that provide the pretexts for the occasions that masquerade as meetings – if we could meet, if there were such a happening, a happy coincidence of human beings, what would now separate us?

-R.D. Laing