A Short History of Nearly Nothing

I don’t believe you.

Tonight my house makes noises 
like footsteps on the stairs
And the rain is too light to wash my hands
but heavy enough to hear,
Heavy enough to reflect the glare
of lights from the freeway and the sprawl. 
I creak and moan with the wind
Or scrape along the floor
with phantom chairs,
and heels, and tables.
The scratches call for sympathy
But I’ve only enough pity
for myself tonight.

Last week my brother said
it’s always sunny in the East,
that the Western suburbs suffer in silence
and in rain.
And he points out the difference
as we drive through the tunnel
From storms to an overcast calm, 
but my palm is still cold against the window
and there are still bloodstains
on my stockings, 
So I love him for speaking in poetry,
but I don’t believe him.

Now my nights are formed by fragments, 
Moments my mind fought me for
- a third glance from across the room
- a question (do you really mean that?)  
- an answer (today I do)
- leading a strange hand outside
- the effort of conversation.
My days trick me into the deprivation 
of sleep, or solitude,
into searching for connections
I need not form.
My hands shake in the wake of
repetition, retaliation; 
I missed my chance, again.

He said I force myself to speak
And he can tell the difference in every word
as I scratch quietly
at the inside of my arm.
I feel the difference
Every day I spend
Outside of myself
Outside of absolutes. 

Now I finally understand
the way I speak,
Even as the air gets thinner,
and the world unclear, 
‘good night’s turn into ‘good morning’s. 
Through the fog I hear myself say
“I can’t sleep alone tonight”
So we’ll share it, for now,
And we’ll share the regret tomorrow,
and I’ll cry,
and make everyone uncomfortable.

But I hear the house’s voice
with more clarity than I ever heard yours, 
Or any ex-near-lover
-significant-other. 
Any crush, any fuck.
I feel more for the cars
Drifting along the freeway
At 11 o’clock at night
Than I could ever feel for you.  

How clarity works

This isn’t a definitive answer
This is only a hint
at what was said,
or what needed to be.
It is a switch between
Intention and alibi
Lulling you into a false sense of
Something between security,
Stability,
and boredom,
as if last night meant nothing,
as if January was a dream
- was it?
Was I dreaming when I awoke
to cat scratches and euphoria?
What fucking difference does it make?

All these rhetorical questions;
the rhetoric of
hiding
and lying
and telling the truth
in actions, not in words
(I can’t thank you enough so
I’ll just take off my dress)
Inaction and
inactivity,
Drawing me back, drawing me in,
Colouring outside the edges
Because lines don’t mean anything
Unless you let them
Whose line are you crossing, anyway?
When did you lose your own definition
and turn transparent
(not quite invisible)
And I’m still here,
But I can sense the ‘something else’
as if it were a dream upon waking
or deja vu,
Or a past life
(all these synonyms will get you nowhere)

Now you don’t know who you are
But you know who you want to be
you want only
to be alone and lost and remember that
you’re only semi-see-through
for the moment,
And to forget that it could change.
You could change.
You could switch back to
walking on air and eggshells and
inside a body too hungover
to care.
You could take care of yourself,
You could make yourself
the definition
Of some lovely sounding word
that doesn’t exist
and live
(alone)
by your own decisions,
Your own lines
- whether crossed or uncrossed,
become lost  (or finally found)
in solitude.

And though this isn’t the answer
you think it is,
it might lead you to something
Definite,
Something solid, stable, secure.
Something to define yourself by. 

Almost.

Pretty girls in lace tops 
Stare out of windows 
And into the air of darkening streets.
With their ancient make-up and worn out skin
They send shock waves towards me,
And we share them
Hiding our faces from the boys behind us.

As they show off their effortless exhaustion,
We compare our ruins; who we are now
and who we were an hour ago
- short skirts, low cut dresses,
Freshly Kissed Lips
all chapped, and almost satisfied.

 “Well, I suppose I’m almost satisfied,
I mean, I could’ve kissed him
- better, longer, with more conviction,
But I did kiss him all the same.”

Did you? Did you?
Have you at last lost the contagion of yourself?
Can you act without feeling?
Can you touch without meaning?
Can you seek without guilt?
Are you guiltless, at long last?
“Oh, to be guiltless!” (laughs)

(she floods me with someone else tonight
she touched his arm, she moved my hand along his leg and
I don’t exist)

Because I can finally let go
(let me let go let me let go),
Though I shiver, I shake 
With all of tonight pressing into me
And I can’t see straight,
‘I’ can’t matter right now.

And I look out the window of a night-time bus 
As we delve deeper into suburbia. 
With darker rings around my eyes than any of those
god.damn.pretty.girls,
An anachronistic dress, 
Blue dots on my fingers,
Friends in scattered seats, 
I could sleep forever. 
And god, I swear, 
I’m almost satisfied.  

I left my shoes in the corner to 
remind myself who was responsible for
the blisters.
I left my best friend to herself for
a few weeks
after I kissed her
and now I don’t know what to call her.
And I keep falling in love with ideas 
(the idea of you in an idealised world, 
and love and hate and sex and
wouldn’t life be so perfect if?) 
and falling out of love with
anyone who looks at me with
anything beyond lust
I couldn’t love you back, after all
After all this diplomatic treachery
and inauthenticity
I won’t love you behind your back 
(behind my thoughts, a headache behind my left eye)
not anymore
It’s too late for that
And I’m too tired of
historical inaccuracies
for anything
like
That.

Let’s call it a day, a flight
A morning after, a
one-night-stand,
and just leave it at that
- aren’t you tired
(I’m warning you)
Don’t I look like shit?
I feel it
(and I feel you and I feel the calluses on my
fingertips and feet and I feel melody line of
the last song I listened to
and the characteristically Melbourne 
change of season due on Monday)
But I won’t feel anything else
until I have to.

So I won’t love you,
or leave my shoes in the corner for
another day/week/month/hour/minute
Because I’m still reeling from
the last mistake I made.  

I’d stare at my calf
From a tinted angle
Squinting through my hair in the half light
And I could stay there all night
And half the day,
If I wanted.
Listening to the words
Of another so-called soul-mate
Half considering something else
But no.
But stay.
Stay with me.
Loneliness is safer than we’d like it to be
Safer than it was yesterday.
I promise you
The comfort of contact
Is not all you’d like it to be.

It was a day and night of solitude
When I turned to the worst of myself, 
And she stared straight back into me
Or the setting, 
settling into the surroundings
all melting into me. 
And an unsteady breath,
An unsteady cry,
oh, I swear I didn’t ask for this,
All I wanted was
one day to stay still,
To stay steady
In spite of any cries of 
Hedonism and self 
indulgence 
(obsession, infatuation, destruction, hatred, disgust).
Just to stand still
Just a small mercy
Just a lie

A lie

A lie

A lie

A liar.

An eye inside of the storm
Oh, you forsaken, forlorn
Pretentious creature,
Hiding inside your words
And your drink
And your love of the nothing 
And nothing else 
- you fooled me. 

(that I don’t know myself either
is entirely besides
the point.)

I stare only between shadows
And the solid world
After covering all the mirrors in my house
The curtains are drawn
over windows, over me, 
Such warmth.
Such strong arms cradling,
And such a shoulder to lean against.
Everything I want,
and no room for you,
                  for hope
                  for sleep
And
no
room
at all

for

need.

I was a whisper away from you 
And you could have been a breath away
From where I stood.

A dark haired girl stands in the centre
of a whispered breath,
a wisp of smoke, 
Death by consumption. 
A copper haired girl
Stands towards the edge;  
“Towards where the edge
of the day may be,
and dreams don’t mock me
or the state
of sleep”
she says as she steps
away.

Lua, Luna, or Isis (the night)
watches them pace in futility; 
They see their movement as
shuffling books,
Sorting cards,
It’s hard though, isn’t it?
Getting everything sorted?
“Oh, god, I need a coffee, 
I need a break,
I need a drink,
Oh Lord, I need a thought
worth more than a moment
To think” 
“You think you’ve got needs?” 
She spits, 
“The ailments of a fraud,
but I..”
She breaks.

And they write
“You liar, 
You’re darkness, 
You’re smoke, 
You burn me” 
They write, 
a step away from their guilt
And pretty old parchment 
whispers
- why don’t you move a little closer?
Do you shake where you stand?
Do your ‘needs’ force your hand, 
to the door knob?

We stand here, still,
In our little coats, 
little care.  
Our breath white
before us,
a concoction of enduring warmth 
and winter air.
“Come closer, I pray”
pleads the girl two steps away,
Whose brother I could almost see. 
While the dark haired girl
smokes in her seat,
Coughs, smiles, and says
“My needs will be the death of me”  

A Purpose

Could I be the quote out of context, 
the anachronistic style,
the features and face shape of another
for you?
For me?
Could the aired out, smoked out,
Out of place rhythm
Cut close enough to the bone,
Hit close enough to home, 
                  (out of tune)
                                 (out of time)  
to be more than an idiom, a simile?
More than you or I or me or my-self,
Or the street lights, the trees?
We all serve the same ends, 
and I mean what I meant 
and I mean that I meant I meant for
something.
Could I mean more than us?  
But nothing can creep out of us when 
We’re so driven and
oh-
    so-
        full
of ambition. 

Each carbon-copy syllable 
Catches on the lips 
and strips off the varnish, veneer,
those little pieces of skin and bark, 
barely skimmed off the top.
Well, now my conscience is clear
as far as I can feel,
it’s best to leave the rest to the devils,
Unspoken,
unmentionable,
Unintentionally (festering) - what a concept!
What an idea!
“what an” is the operative phrase, here,
A purpose. 

So, Tomorrow, I’ll be a reference;
The day I found my father’s antique in his study; 
Oh, how the last ten years have taken their toll.
Well, nothing to be done. 
But,
    do you remember that day we did this 
    and that and the other and the air felt all thin
    and our skin rustled as we heaved through all the 
    dead leaves and ambiguity of senseless, superfluous imagery 
    and the sky had that look in its eye and I became an adverb, and
Do you remember?
Do you? Do you?
I do, I do, I was, I am,
And I won’t move ‘till each memory is attached
To a thought, to a song.
To reassure each and every one of us
each moment,
That we do not live in isolation, but with precedent,
With quotes and charming photographs to remind us
We exist in parallel, 
and last night was not a dream.
We are not varnish.
We are not. (vanishing.) 

So, is your wedding ring still in your drawer?  
Was her name engraved in gold,
Or did sentimentality not have its hold on you?
And when the child in the picture book
wore black, swallowed her ego and aspirin, 
Would she have been saved by the truth that
her sweetheart told the wrong woman he loved her?
She is a transition;
Never a pause,
Never a straight answer,
Still a quote, still a reference to home made hallucinogens 
and home or carsick remedies. 
I don’t feel quite myself today, 
I don’t look myself, I can’t see myself,
Not when we all wear our selves on our sleeves.
Bony wrists, a simple ‘why not?’ spelled out 
on the pale skin of the inner arm.
Why not say what we say and know what we mean; 
Split vision, splintered sight, 
We can’t focus on anything. 

For a friend

She was bandaged and sullen when I last saw her
Hair drifting over her cheek.
While playing with the raw skin near her thumbnail 
She told me she’d started to believe
in her exile more than anything I could say.
We’ve barely spoken in three months
So I guess she’s stayed that way. 

Wrestling the scissors away from her Mother, 
Taking them back for herself. 
Answering phone calls from Thailand or Sinapore,
From her father.
Oh, what did you say words were for?
That night you told me life was an after taste, 
And I knew your life was a waste of you.
With grey lead smudges on your fingers
And sketches that told of the unintelligible truth.

You dated a boy who was bad for your heart,
and bait for your mind and body.
Another of us,
The tortured, the faithless, the destructive
- what a sad little bunch we are.
He said your love was chemical,
And he was an earthquake for the chemistry in your brain.
Another temptation,
all suicide pacts and heroin dreams
Hypocrisy you didn’t need. 
So the betrayal of a kiss
from a boy or a girl, 
from a virgin or a devil or an ex
couldn’t be half the hurt he caused you.
You two sore-covered souls can’t touch each other now, 
But oh, how I want you to reach inside of me
And take anything you need,
My dear, my friend.

And you didn’t smile at all the day you told me
Your love saved you from the road,
And a policeman told you to grow up
And make sure your Mother stayed away from bridges,
Stayed away from herself.
While your brother took photographs of skylines and sunflowers
You would cry, 
And I couldn’t say enough. 
No, I could never say enough.

She walked with a full body cast,
A no-questions-asked policy,
Keeping friends and competition at bay.
Keeping her detention up and running
And edges invisibly frayed.
Those school-girls won’t let her out or in
or live up to the rose coloured grass over fence posts
Anyway.
Now it’s been months since I’ve seen her,
But I guess that she’s stayed that way.  

In the swamp.

We have become noise. 
Static snow on a ‘93 radio set
Shouts and screeches en masse -
Let the school yard chant of 
(FIGHT.FIGHT.FIGHT)
take over. 
Let us fall in with the disorganised papers. 
We have become circus animals, lost chances 
for grand(/grandiose) expectations.
Alphabetised. Denied. 

Her bone structure is charmingly defined
But her eyes are a marsh, a swamp over pristine blue.
Wetlands of washed up and borrowed personality traits
with a crisis of consciousness for each.
An elegant wolf in sheep’s clothing,
(baa baa blackness)
she’s caged in a tranquil(ised) doze.  
I’m in crowded company with sand in my shoes
And (without) the lighthearted connotations. 

They say grace before dinner here  
and pray in their sleep. (Lord, keep me)
I don’t know anything here.
I don’t know anyone.
But anyhow, that’s how we work here,
Eating our vegetables and talking to God. 
Saying No to Drugs and Love and Alcohol,
and an accidentally inhaled cigarette.
These girls can do it all,
after all.
Why can’t I?
Playing violins and smuggling in junk food
While the other kids smuggle in speed.
Different expressions of the same disease,
the ceaseless need to rebel (against?)
New symptoms for all our years and
all those threats of reality, ominous, looming,
Consuming our illicit lives and substances
Sugar highs,
layered shapes in his arms.

We don’t change, though, 
and we’re all still so young.
So high, so low, 
A low.  
Allowed to speak out loud in our sleep.
If I should die before I wake
Let me die with dignity,
quietly, peacefully.
Save my family the disgrace of
Noise.
She laughs and I gag
And they chitter-chatter-clatter-shattering glasses
And it slurs into some God-awful scowl
of a sound.

Still, somewhere else,
The air in the forest breathes (howls)
Quietly,
Endlessly.
Swaying, sighing, towering. 
It talks in thoughts of smallness and symmetry, 
And I am still.
I lie with nothing and less to lose
At their feet,
Silence broken by thunderous peace
A gasp of realisation.
Ice cracking between my teeth.
I am bleeding through to you,
Through an unacquired sense (empathy). 

See, the artists all agree with the poets, 
Poe and Plath and Shelley nod their heads vigorously
with Van Gogh; 
Even storm clouds and dead trees breath louder
Than we. 
(the girl with the swamp eyes)
Though we do yell at the wind 
(FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.)
And listen for traffic in the night, 
(a school-yard-chant )
In and out of years,
Centuries drowning senses in noise. 
Lovers and friends and
Delighted enemies. 
But I am still, and we are still violently quiet. 
Eventually, we’ve no choice,
We give way to the light rain on the window
And dissolve.