many many lights shine at you
The Quiet World
In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
- Jeffrey McDaniel
--
Driving home on deserted roads, early hours in an empty sky, dark houses silent sidewalks have become the norm the last few weeks. Yes, I have been out and about but mostly I wish for a few days to myself just to roll around in bed and huddle before this screen cocooned in my comforter, nose likely to be buried in tissue. Shiok sick. I wish I had a tv in my room, hang it on the balcony door across my bed and watch E! Entertainment or random dvds about skinny waifs or Sweet Sixteen.
Do you ever wonder how much your parents know about you? I leave things lying about and my computer's on all the time even when I'm out, and I don't know who comes into my room while I am gone. Will the random blog addresses in my Internet browser history say anything? Or shock horror, if I ever leave my Facebook page open? Even my Photos folder could be pretty telling. I'm not really sure how well I'd want them to know me. I keep having mini nightmare clips where my parents sit me down and tell me some beastly little secret only my diary knows. This is when I see my diary drawer slightly ajar and wonder for a paranoid second if I really did leave it like that or has someone been poking around?
Suddenly there has been no need to document every single event in my life. It doesn't really seem to matter much anymore, the memories. They've all sort of merged into people who I see often enough or not enough. I feel a little like a seventy year old who can't remember if history happened yesterday or two decades ago. It is scary but slightly liberating as though I have been relieved from the stress of specifically dating and labelling things.
Lately I have been craving Gratification.
Is there ever a right level of drunkenness? Isn't one either sober or drunk? 'High' always seems slightly dissatisfying, when you're feeling too sober and coldly aware to be drunk yet not drunk enough to like to be drunk. I wish I could be one of those people who could get drunk on air. Although wouldn't that be scary, you'd either be an airholic or you'd just be dead.
In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond, I know
she's used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
- Jeffrey McDaniel
--
Driving home on deserted roads, early hours in an empty sky, dark houses silent sidewalks have become the norm the last few weeks. Yes, I have been out and about but mostly I wish for a few days to myself just to roll around in bed and huddle before this screen cocooned in my comforter, nose likely to be buried in tissue. Shiok sick. I wish I had a tv in my room, hang it on the balcony door across my bed and watch E! Entertainment or random dvds about skinny waifs or Sweet Sixteen.
Do you ever wonder how much your parents know about you? I leave things lying about and my computer's on all the time even when I'm out, and I don't know who comes into my room while I am gone. Will the random blog addresses in my Internet browser history say anything? Or shock horror, if I ever leave my Facebook page open? Even my Photos folder could be pretty telling. I'm not really sure how well I'd want them to know me. I keep having mini nightmare clips where my parents sit me down and tell me some beastly little secret only my diary knows. This is when I see my diary drawer slightly ajar and wonder for a paranoid second if I really did leave it like that or has someone been poking around?
Suddenly there has been no need to document every single event in my life. It doesn't really seem to matter much anymore, the memories. They've all sort of merged into people who I see often enough or not enough. I feel a little like a seventy year old who can't remember if history happened yesterday or two decades ago. It is scary but slightly liberating as though I have been relieved from the stress of specifically dating and labelling things.
Lately I have been craving Gratification.
Is there ever a right level of drunkenness? Isn't one either sober or drunk? 'High' always seems slightly dissatisfying, when you're feeling too sober and coldly aware to be drunk yet not drunk enough to like to be drunk. I wish I could be one of those people who could get drunk on air. Although wouldn't that be scary, you'd either be an airholic or you'd just be dead.