No more insider traits. We want that sound, we wait for your call. Purpose or design. Delusions made for comfort. These are memories too, not to blame. Stolen by this heat. Drowned in sun. I sit all day now. Beating myself up. Toss/turn. Trying to write straight.

Should I take myself out, go for a walk? Let through to empty or purge or forget or wait. I try to place my friends. Move from and in with them. Bored as ever.

Will he be here soon, my good friend? I am hoping for larger windows. Walks to the water. Sea rides. Bike paths. Throwing myself into the ocean.

I could sleep through each day not knowing or feeling. Wake, hope for transformation. To another state. Open plain. Removalist. Driving foreign car, crossing land, to this border. I do not drive too well, get stuck in country towns. Your bad ex-girlfriend teaching me manual. I like these freeways. No gear shift. Lose grip. Fail to apply breaks on the ascent. Cut the intersection. Suddenly bypass collision. This friend should have never given me the wheel. I was conditioned for automatic. These settings were confusing. No simple procedure. Only hard turns. I am visitor and guest in her car. She is driving to see her lover. Whom she later betrays. Now past passed. This car has a name. We eat rice. I take straight lines, roads without obstacles. One move forwards. One moves forward. A second to turn.

Imagine being kissed, imaginary kisses. Write with him in mind. Simpler, if not preferred. Still a distance. I can no longer be driven. Take in these grains, full like. Choked, alert me to another kind of stimulus. Stare into the blue light. Find a friend in boredom, says Josh. His property. Instead I find a job. I quote. I see his point. I give over my image. Secret stash, monotone photos. He asks: why me? Why him. He knows why. I need him to see me this way. Not as a figure. As open as possible. Willingly his.

My writing begins to disappear. Or else I can't write. To reform or contemplate. Conform. Strokes of indecipherable waste. To bother with symbols. Clouded over. Begin to burn the edges of those pages. I believe I need to see and smell their demise and disintegration.

copyright © the author, 2000