Little Red continued.

WHOSE BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BEDsaid the wolf 'it's a reference' he chuckled. 'Get it'
Red's shaking.
No one no one.
'not us' said the wolf followed by
'ha' and then
'ha'
not me i've been up all night with my eyes nailed through the ceiling i've forgotten how to count
count back from one hundred
i've forgotten how to count
count to ten
breathe
and
'i thought you liked it when i dressed up in woman's clothes, it made you feel safe to pretend'so WHOSE BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?

i guess i'll walk these streets
shaking
my fingers boring holes in my wrists
i hold my rage so tight.
and that clipclopclip
of my heels isn't followed by
a menacing echo,
it's the beat to my march.
i guess i'll walk these streets
with my eyes wide open
because i like to look around,
i like to look you in the eye
when you offer your advice
when i spit in your direction
that
i deserve to Be Safe
not Keep Safe.
i guess i'll hope you'll understand that
if i need your help
i really need it
and i need you ears
and not your eyes
and not your hand.
i guess i'll walk these streets
screaming, singing,
hear us.

i get smaller. i fashion a small boat from your smallest nail. stroke stroke stroke my head (i'm nervous) my thigh (i jump) stroke stroke stroke you exhale and the river drowns me.

THE CAT: I'd love to do something I really would. It's just such a shame, but I can't because I'm just a cat. THE BIRD: You have to do something. THE CAT: But I'm just a cat.

we meet our hero in an abandoned cattle-ranch in the middle of the big smoke wearing glasses that cover her forehead and devouring a vegetable pastie. she's got a cape that reaches the water-tangled miles away is a small child caught in the net of her cape drowning as they drag through the water, the rocks, the sand. Grit in their teeth, their eyeballs. hero has one person to save, a helluvalotofpaperwork.

i said i am very clever and i have accomplished many things head in a toilet bowl/the base of a tree/a garbage bin a wretch HERE. take this watering can. one day i will produce a flower you can live by, or these are the goals, or this is what must spill from the mouth of the can that feeds me. follow me, i have a loud voice i have many opinions (i mostly tell to you. i often feel i wait for my words to repeat out of someone else's mouth.) i will come storming in on horseback and take all the land and all the sea and we will live like kings.

this is wrote for you.

she walks in to the room with practised sass holding her heart in an outstretched hand. "what can you promise me?" he asks. she walks in to the room with every gift she's ever grown: throws a well developed and never thought of mixture of petals and ash and stars and howls to the ground. "what can you promise me?" he asks. she takes off her clothes, her skin, her hair. drains herself. "what can you promise me?" he huddles at her feet licking his wounds and shakes as the room fills with words repeated over and over again made in eternal filling up space their future building skyscrapes with no views with out understanding maths and the square metres of that wordeverything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING everything everything everything EVERYTHING.

mutton birds.

In the beginning the moon was attached to the land. We made promises to the moon and stole glances with the sun. The moon grew jealous. The moon wanted to be a star. He went to singing lessons and deportment classes and didn't spend enough time with the earth. We said we were busy anyway. We withdrew. He didn't feel seen, or loved or needed. He said he needed space. He escaped. And lived to echo the sun. We betrayed the moon. We let him fall. Then we built walls around our cities, our hearts, we started eating each other, we waited for civilisation to come bounding through and destroy everything. He sent postcards “Wish you were here, the view of 'whatever exotic place' is breathtaking" ergo I can't breathe with out you. "I wave to you from time to time." as if we didn't notice the moon in full swing every month, probably with a smug expression, though maybe crying, if only we could see that far. We invented telescopes and spied on the one we still loved. We tied all the balloons in all the world together and started to fly. Let's wake at sunrise, born from our history, heartbreak, the memory of indifference. Let's rise in to the blue, defy the sun, chase, capture, hold. Bring him back to our chests complaining of tired arms and meaning 'I'm sorry.'

you throw
glass at your feet,
and admire the way
the light catches
yours shadows

//
this is how you see yourself
i think //

the house is quickly running out
of lightbulbs
i picture you living
in one of the broken ones
as it bursts
you bellow
from the place between your hips
where feelings go
and suffer infection

(i once had thrush for 6 months
and stabbing pains on the inside
the doctors said
there was nothing wrong
and prescribed anti depressants
to help the thrush
they hadn't found)

and you're Screaming
so low the room shakes
and the glass just BLOWS
with you inside.

and you're laughing
and say 'this reminds me of that time and so on and so forth and such and such'
that thing that you laugh at that makes me cry.

and you step on the glass
you Crush
and complain

that someone broke your home.

the size of a thumbnail,
foolish,
with one arm flailing
help me won't you

i built a spaceship

/glass, spit, twine/

it's a two-seater
but room for extension

/one dog, one cat, no ponies/

plenty of water
and cold air,
piled blankets to the ceiling
and
SPACE

i put glow-in-the-dark stars
on the glass roof

we can see the stars
and the stars
can see us

the stars can see

i over react
put newspaper under the glass
with sticky-tape
like
a sweat shop
in the centre of the city

you can't hear

i just spilt boiling water on my mouth.

it burns.

something to focus on, i am running.

i am sitting on the golden couch in my not-lounge-room-not-kitchen-not-anything designated couch area of my not-home-house.

i make pasta, i burn my mouth tasting the pasta. i spill boiling water on my mouth. my lips must be huge. i'm beautiful, i'm thin, i have massive lips with out the complication of surgery or injections.

i can't eat. i am running. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOMmy heart is BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOMmy heart is BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOMmy heart is LOUD and FAST it is streets ahead. i am frozen.

[hunter was right, of course when he said]
i am afraid.

spoken word@midsumma.

I also read this:

like a game of sardines
i fold in to your decline
stretching my fingers
over any flesh
i can find and claim
as some wary explorer
with a tiny flag 'i was here!' 'i discovered this!'

(we were both shaking,
or that is how i will remember:
damp foreheads
skin roaming skin
bodies weeping.)

in these small moments i try
to memorise everything
i venture,
taking frantic notes
of scars, angles, textures-
love measured in your very form,
life measured in these little journeys.

i will say
"i have travelled over mountains, sea
to meet you,
my most beautiful adventure."

spoken word@midsumma.

I read this if front of people, then felt embarrased (stuff stolen from previous posts and made better or worse)....:

In the beginning there was God, or King Kong
depending on who you spoke to.

In the beginning there was God AND King Kong
sharing a pokey bed-sit above a shop in the Nevada desert.

They both agreed it was a nice enough place for the first apartment even though
King never kept the place tidy and God was always a few days late with his rent.

They were, for the most part happy.

In the beginning
there was a man who carved lovers from his bones.

In the beginning there was a chicken And an egg.

There was a single flower.

There was a seed.

In the beginning there was no land,
no sea.

Or,
there was sea
but no land.

There was still.

There was a single star.

There was sky.

There was a wish.

They chase each other around places of whimsy;
an old playground
carving each other in to grey bark;
they play games of cat and mouse
learnt from old copies of cosmo
make sweeping statements
that stain the air.

They fill breaths with lists:
these are the words that rush from our mouths with out sense,
planning impractical
infinite beauty.

They draw maps
of each other
and eat them
devouring each road
hoping it will latch on to a tonsil
a nerve
as a fashionable disease-

the kind that threatens to kill but rarely succeeds.


Somewhere
in the middle -
an argument of dishes
and depths of love
God screaming “Need me”.
King Kong
(with a hate of confrontation)
wetting himself,
stickying
the apricot
coloured tiles

thinking

[thank 'whoever' we never got that
shag carpet
laid out
there'd been disagreements
all round

these are the moments
to rejoice in]

saying

“we're out of milk”
sobbing in to the damp floor.

God leaves
with a grunt,
skulks to the end
of the block-
as small as he knows how.

King pictures
running to the rescue
scooping him
in to his arms
and kissing him tenderly
on the mouth
to a close.

He whispers.

"There is no blame.
There is no regret.
I have loved every moment."

He cleans up his mess.

They share
chaos
They learn
They stumble
They learn again.

They hold on.

At the end,
they huddle together
hands sunk in someone else's
pockets
shivering
beneath patchworks
they'd stitched
along the way.

one's eyelid sagged
and drooped
and dropped to close.

'if this is The End' they say
'i don't want to see it.'

They hold on.

The last star fades
soon the sky
only lingers of
black.

The two sit
hand in hand
in heart
and stare
in to the dark.