Sunday, September 28, 2003

Somewhere between here and there. That was something Fiona came up with a while back. An idea for a book or a performance. A good name for a song too. So I'm moving again soon. Back to the town I grew up in. They say we are like birds flocking back to the nest. Cows come home to pasture? No no no. Ok, yes. Well at least for a little while. At least. I am calling this a temporary measure. How long? I've been borrowing rulers. So month by month things change. At least.

Promise of a boy perhaps? Making room in this life? He's 24 and that's ok.

Monday, August 11, 2003

7 months between entries. My body isn't what it used to be. Or let me rephrase that: my body never had much use. OK that sounds rather glum. What I mean to say is: how does a body function, relate, get intimate, go in. Think of the "kids" and how I am circling the party. Yeah, thanks for the invite. Wish I was there. I talk to M about stuff, art ideas, he's all up for it but then I'm not sure I want or need to go there with someone (new). Boy. There has to be better ways, ways to curb my desire for vision. I think about him and I get shivers. Just thoughts of his hands. Some warm breath. Something tender. Such little things, hope.

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

They are moving away. All of them, finding mentors, guides, spiritual leaders, partners. The ones who were meant to stay.

Friday, January 31, 2003

dear jason -

do i write, or do i let the silence stand. it would seem easier to just let things drift and disappear. and if that's what you wanted jason i'm sorry, but i wanted to say goodbye on my terms this time, not feel the rush of time or the gag in my mouth preventing me from saying anything. i started this correspondence and maybe that was the wrong thing to do, somewhat selfish. its just that at the time there was something just below the surface, felt and thought, that i didn't want to just pass me by, not at that momement anyway. when i wrote to you after you left, there were no intentions, i wasn't reaching out, i stand well enough on my own. all i wanted was to say something. there was a space left when you walked away and i wanted to fill it. what are the words i'm trying to conect with jase. that the words i wrote, simple admissions of desire were enough for me.

is that enough jason? i just deleted a paragraph because it seemed pointless, sometimes brevity serves honesty, leaves you less space to hide, fewer words to hide behind. silence is a sign, and i'm assuming that you have put this chapter to sleep. before i go jason i must say even now when i think our correspondence has probably finshed, that i felt a connection there for a while, but the time we had together was too short to give it a proper name. too short to know what it was and whether to act upon it. i still think you're gorgeous of course, but i understand that you are looking for something, or someone else, without the complications. believe me i understand how complicated my life is, but i enjoy it. i don't however expect everyone else to, unless they're sad bastards that enjoy the ordeal.

well jase this is goodbye for now, but i can't promise i won't write again and i do hope we meet again, because most of all i liked you a lot. ........chris

Friday, January 31, 2003

Always with the Italian boys. I think they like me.

Monday, December 30, 2002

Thinking about it, this time my assumption was way off. What I thought was a spark was truly a fire. The boy I assumed to be straight (with quasi-wife and 6-month old baby in hand) tells me he wants me and that his life over the past four years has been a 'mistake'. What does someone do with this information? If you are me, you obsess. You let it get the better of you. You try to supress the urge to buy the boy a plane ticket to Melbourne (he is in Perth). You think to yourself: I am better off letting this go, look for something NOT COMPLICATED.

But oh no. Not even Jonathan Cainer's astrology charts will help me here. I've fallen into the game and now, after two intense and quite openly affectionate (read: wanting) emails, I hear nothing from him.

OK. So it's xmas. So it's western new years. I suppose he's "sorting stuff out". He is a scorpio. I am a gemini. He is 'coming to terms'. I am reassessing my compulsive behaviours and patterns.

For someone I didn't know I wanted but now would do anything to have him, it's confounding.

Friday, November 15, 2002

<< diversity & disappearance.
<< absence & adversity.

he practices within & over & about queer identity forged by outsider tendencies matched with irish & dutch crossover parentage wherein the dominant language in de haus & spreken de dutch. he speaks it a little, as you can see. but dutch were also imperialists so he often feels more at ease & connected to the vague, less talked-about irish background. hence often he throws people if he claims dutch heritage. anyhow, his moeder was not born in australia, she was a child of nederlandse. his opa died slowly in the early 70's after entering the shores of this land. he worked on the shipyards & was eventually poisoned by his own addictions. his oma never really wanted to speak english. his moeder never lost the language.

they spent three months on a boat to australia.
moeder (wilhelmina mathilda van adrichem, now tilly sweeney) was seasick the whole time.
opa built boats & dreamt of living on the sea.
he smoked too many cigarettes.
oma is drawn always to water.
she still lives for the ocean.
moeder can't go near it.
she lives inland.

from which he (son of, grandchild to) emerged & submerged as queer.
which has its own linguistic & gestural codes.
he thinks not within community because the boy does not understand what this means.

to be in a practice (which to him always sounds like he 'practices' medicine, or 'the practice' with lara flynn boyle & that man with the scary cheekbones) which has continually drawn upon elements of emergent identities & cultural miscommunications.

his friends & collaborators are ethnically & culturally diverse too which often sounds like point-scoring, but they are his friends, not fodder for a grant report.

anyhow he works with & across cultural activistisms & activities: disabitilty culture, queer culture, youth culture, no culture, whatever culture. there is a CV waiting to happen.

& all this feeds back into the creative work. immediately and eventually.

to seek & reclaim multi&crossculturalismz as valid, present & to move beyond blanket statements in this whitewashed country.

Thursday, August 22, 2002

Kearney (he can go by his surname) had a scent that other people have but is distinctively his. He worked at the radio station (too) and I remember moments particularly in the record library. He was a "punk" kid and I was just an eighties pop junkie. But we "hung out" and he had one of "those" smiles. He was in love with my friend, Lisa. I confessed my obsession with him to Lisa's friend, Alex. I then discovered Alex had a strange obsession with me.

This was Adelaide, 1991.

*

Saturday, August 10, 2002

There was the boy who used to kick me around in high school. He was my first straight boy crush. One of those slightly cool characters, shortish, a little body that I wanted to see more of. I don't remember his name. He had dark hair and wore his uniform well. He was the only tormentor that I never feared. The rest were ugly and I wish them dead. With the cool boy I'm sure his taunts were small acts of love directed through anger. At himself, at desiring me. Watching him in final year exams idly leaning over his desk, not caring if he fails or succeeds. Because of him I got a lesser grade.

Leaving school, apart from the massive liberation that accompanied such a momentus occasion, was now the time of seek and find. Mark, rugby player, unsure of himself or others, was my first proper connection and rejection in the game of straight boy love. Yes, love, Mark went into another realm of dark nights and oh-so-close-but-never-touching passings-by. To Mark I was a puppy dog and he was a bomb maker during the day. I made a close friend, who shared a house with him, jealous. I think she fancied him too. But Mark was a fuck-up, like me, and we got on well. He was always terse with me. He often put me down in public. He laughed at my numerous stupidities. He even hit me once or twice. I was 19 years old and in love.

Nights spent with Mark doing radio shows. Nights spent with Mark alone in his house. Nights, when Mark was asleep, I'd stick around, hoping to see him in bed, naked. Mornings when I'd come around, wait for him to get out of the shower, thinking I'd just rip that towel from around his waist and seduce him. I never did. An afternoon where I offered a shoulder rub, which he accepted, and I dug my fingers into his flesh. He actually leaned back onto my lap. I'm sure he felt my erection.

*

Monday, July 8, 2002

I do it to resolve something.
The absence of some other object...
All the times he called you by the wrong name...
And on...

Fade in, fade out. A request, by another boy.

I haven't written.
What I am supposed to have written.

*

Friday, June 21, 2002

I took him by the hand and lead him to the club where we both first met. He said, 'we're achieving nothing by going back, it's a waste of time, a waste of time.'

Why couldn't he see that I was upset, struggling to face the good times we'd had?

Are you coming 'round to my point of view?
What does it take to get through to you?

If this comes to nothing I'll understand just why there is no answer to these open-ended futile questions... at all.

I've started to rehearse these lines.
I'm not ready to perform tonight.

Why does he keep asking me to repeat these words I've said a hundred or more times before he'd return the favour and kiss me one more time? ... but he's ungrateful and so messed up and condescending. So messed up and condescending.

*

Wednesday, June 19, 2002

My birthday, 19th of June. I've been writing this a lot of late. On tax department forms. On Centrelink forms. On train fine forms. On customs forms. On job application forms. Happy birthday.

Of course it all makes me think of Steven. I don't care if I mention your name now because I am beyond ... what? Deep down (beyond flesh, skin, bones, spirit) I care. But perhaps it's all selfish and melodramatic strokes of the brow. Maybe he never existed. Well, he certainly never showed at the airport and that's just Bad Form.

For my birthday, Megan buys me an espresso and a Tim Tam. Nicole bakes me a cake with Jaffas. Mum rings and sounds vaguely Scottish (I thought it was Mandy for a second). Teresa phones from Adelaide, about work and creativity. Janiece writes and says, 'for yew. in jewn.'

But no male voices.
All I hear is Morrissey in a television interview and then someone writes in an email to me, 'So are you influenced by The Smiths'.

How could I not be.
"I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday".

Tim writes and says I've not been faithful to a recording contract.

What process is this of forgetting, of losing touch?

Megan, speaking of a particular film-maker, 'I just hope he has some love in his life because I couldn't cope with all the depressing films he makes!'.

*

Sunday, April 14, 2002

I'm increasingly aware of that type of feeling. The one I get when suddenly I look up, after hours of hard dancing in close proximity to a bunch of people I feel safe with, to be confronted with the cold reality that all of my friends have disappeared, that I am moving, now quite softly, tiredly, with a bunch of strangers. I don't know how to name this feeling. All I know is that minutes later I am walking the dark streets of North Fitzroy, blindingly drunk, thinking I could easily curl up on that bus-shelter seat and just wake up with the sunrise, catch a tram home and forget about the hours of crying that preceded it.

I was talking to her about men. We were saying how important it is not be attached. To not find ourselves living in the shadow of another 'male genius'. To find truth in our own lives and to be happy with being alone. We were walking to a party, my closest male friend in front of me talking to people I hardly know, and she and I discussing him. How much love we feel for him. How beautiful and kind and wise and caring and tender a male he is. How it is sad that he is about to be alone again and how this feeling will hit him hardest when he moves away from the security of a long term relationship. She too knows how this feels. She has been there. I have not. And she tells me she knows a man who I should be introduced to. And I shiver at the thought.

I'm laying my head on his shoulder. He is drunk enough not to care. We are no strangers to playful affection. He encourages me. We share a beer. He is looking at girls. I can see my friend. He is standing with a man I long for. But can never have. "That's the story of my life...". I wrote a song about this man and it was very direct. He's never been the same around me since.

*

Friday, November 30, 2001

He fell from my grip, this is how it feels. For so long that desire to talk, walk, be with him, was there. I wasn't. Some words I've lost he sent. In some crash. The sweetest man, so much fire. Lost in his sleep. He fell. A pink silence serene. I loved him, he never knew. Not in the way I spoke it. I feel his grip, an embrace, we carried, each other, and I felt his skin, he was there, once, together so much, and video, sea, summer. Always a laugh.

This week I heard on a telephone line, from someone not far. Spoke of him, said his name softly slowly. I knew when she said it before she said it. Died in his sleep. But where is that language I was using? To speak of. Can't think of a word now. To describe this. To speak of a reaction. Is a reaction. A pink silence. Was there ever a word between us? That spoke of us was about speaking we said a lot and then sometimes - hum. Died. I knew that word at a very young age. I couldn't get a grip on it. So she said. Oh. Not to upset me. Did I know him. Yes. I'm sorry to break this to you. But I needed to know. To hear it.

Last time running I was rushed and it was the last I spoke I saw him and I hugged I'm certain of it I hug him that embrace that touch we felt strength in but I had to run I had to be somewhere and apparently that somewhere was important and I had not been in this town for a time and here he was and now she's on the phone telling me what I don't need to be told in that tone but how can I possibly feel closed I can't accept a word of it we never finished our sentence that time together.

*

Thursday, October 25, 2001

The speed at which he fucks me in this rapid fire text and pixelated hand-job zone jerked off in a place of simple flirtation a glared flash a unified entry an image so raw to frame this there's me stuck in greyness of stark colour of worn reminders that this distance stays firm between us can't touch even though he's touched me deeply so precise a metal incision or that touch that only myself or this screen knows forget all those boys so hot burning modems flood in with cum dreams devoid of romance to break in jimmy the lock until you take me. Aside.

He will never be mine. He is noone's property. I spray millions of tiny light shards, colours, for you, him, all of you. What is this relationship? All about. In private. Yes. He and I cross in. Cross over. Game played. To each a chromatic form, to each other, we fade or move across, 1.2 frames/second. Like he's not really there. Reading a smile. That figures. Urgency, an explanation, expression of love. Do you love me? Our text disappears. Only snapshots of him. What is permanent? Mail each other photographs, proof, through a wire. It gets to me. Describing these tears. He gets me so hard. Hear Boyracer sing. Will I see you again? Will I see you again? Will I see you again?

Tonight, to give these eyes a rest, shut off from poisonous rays, new types of infection, we are geographically split, both sort of West, Canadian/US borders apart, prised, as in, cannot reach you, for now, kisses on screen, blown. Our names lose significance. Identifiably yours. I commit to that. To send you an animated gesture, an inflection via acronym. Abbreviations of desire, did I get through or was my connection lost? I see. Hang on. Copying numbers or passwords.

These days are beyond research. These days seem to sterilize me, reductive and negated sex. This I want no more. A fear that he will leave me or afraid of disconnection. To not see words. Probably an argument. In our current state. Anxiety sleep, not slept, this dream of a test, minutes before waking, what do I have to learn, you must take me, slow, you must take me. And such intense half-rest. Every sound is you.

I've been here before, seen these boxes, him there, black and white, I am on camera, pictures window framed, dressed in a dark blue shirt, long sleeves, short brown hair, you are next to me, him here, dressed same, both backgrounds neutral. This is how I see him. And became love. And he says to me: "I find you more attractive each time I see you". He makes me smile.

Erased from the screen cannot take this reminder of him and now that he is silent the days stretch out and stretch out and wait stretch out and wait there is a link to our flesh meeting such time will pass and then what? Where do we go from here? A question I had not considered. Speed at which we fuck and the time it takes to forget. Walk through the snow and with gloves absorb what feels like sadness but really manifests itself as knowledge. A new way out. In this forest I can breathe. There is that animal, I give wide berth.

Consider a train, a ride with him. Have planned to shift flights, still the year is ending. Now he seems like a goner. Suddenly I am drinking way too much. People are feeding me alcohol and I say to them: "He and I are lovers". I am afraid my body will be a disappointment to him. He can only picture me in grayscale. Scars of my flesh are blurred by bit-rate. Compression tactics. Can you love me beyond android form? Do you really want to see this? Does your tongue know? The way I touch taste smell? Resampled pieces of me recovered, reconsituted. Coming through filters.

Sized up. He shows, for what it's worth, himself, streaming and in part smile phase. I'm preparing myself again for devastation. Meantime system control is down. Spending hours converting straight boys. This has to stop. What freezes in this winter is not the road. To a full stop. He's staying out. Cannot register his interest. For a week, it seems. Beneath the sheets. Struggling with the heat in this room. Generation. Dry air. Below degrees.

The system that fuses us recoils.

*

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

Walk into or away from. Something that today, unfelt. Tomorrow's pain maybe. Or do you stay in your leafy suburb, no touch but to stay safe. Perhaps without even thinking about being unsafe. UN. What protects. US.

The Sea. And Cake. Dinner made but somehow not well. It's up to me now, fix it or just lie. Down, bed should come earlier but I insist on dragging out the night here. Listening to Sam's voice meander. He's a crooner really.

One of those weeks, did I plan not leave the house for two days cos this is what's happened. Has happened. Until train rides over land.

*

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Trans/traveller. Transadelaide. A transportation company. Anyhow, I'm riding it again. People say "you look tired". People say "I liked you better with a shaved head". People say "I'm mad to love you". Ok no that wasn't people. That was someone else. Someone sang that and I could tell you who. Love you, leave you. It's all the same.

Who is the man I hear on the television. One of the cute, broad Aussie-speaking types whose relative fame is sure to expire in over a year or else he'll be hosting one of those home decorating shows. Just like Shirley, but now he's gone. I have a coffee mug from Nicole with Shirley written on it and I always end up singing Billy Bragg.

So I now carry a Sportsgirl satchel. I'm a man about town.

*

Monday, August 13, 2001

In between cities, two (far apart) in this one country, so the night before, hardly rested, was that a dream about father, sudden waking, waking for and for an alarm to wake so I sweat and it's still early. Could be rain outside.

Certainly fog. No, won't be leaving on time.

*

Monday, July 23, 2001

(Prepare for take-off). So my plan for train travel thwarted again. I don't trust the air. Going on to (back to) "home" territory in under 2 weeks. Adelaide=magnet. =place to connect again with like-minds. To exit from docklands and romance. (Sea travel, after walk to Pier to see trade ship depart, maybe to skirt the Bass Strait).

Waiting for S to arrive online. Cuz I'm sad about all this bloodshed today in Italy, the police battering the protesters, I just need to know that S is around, that he's thinking of me. Or else I just write a song.

The kids at the school across the road are screaming again. What pain is that?

*

Monday, July 2, 2001

Never that good at keeping diaries or getting the demons to speak (or was that the recent odd bout of illness i just endured?)...

Some things, yeah, like they had no ending or pause and just lately I feel a continuum of sorts a sense that I was just making a cuppa and came back in the room to find him there. He knows. So he speaks and we talk of plane tickets and the money neither of us have to buy them. The failures of geography.

...There's a simple phrase that I know that explains the way I feel now. It all depends on the answer that he may or may not give me in response to the question I pose. It's not complicated. Wasted regrets, false tears he'd shed. Well the time we spent together ... it wasn't very long... no.

*

Saturday, June 9, 2001

So ok I don't ring any of you because these days you're all coupled up and like I don't wanna be the proxy son the boy you can look after when he's down and why don't I just leave the house tonight?

As if shouting it out will fix it. Like riding this train or this tram and seeing all these men transfixed but not on me on their phones on their way home to their wives their girlfriends their time to spend together and how do I stare back at the boys who are older or younger and I'm just not thinking straight.

Everything is an understatement.

Listening to Talulah Gosh won't make things better, it'll just ease the longing for a while... Oh, pathetic. I throw a bone to the dogs...

*

Tuesday, May 29, 2001

Oh, well I could set fire to the rope that you'd hang.
And the feeling is not bad,
It's just death at our hands.
It's just death at our hands.
And the rope that you hang
Was meant for me again.
You're a very bad friend.

Friday, May 11, 2001

09.05.01, Noarlunga Train

Always on this line. Silent walk, routine, something to change, for fear of being seen, as in, a regular. Paranoid writings from Adelaide. Station feels like a morgue. So happy this only lasts four more days.

When I lived here I never took the time to sit by the river. I'm doing things like a tourist, seeing the city through the eyes of a visitor. To think this place was once home. Now it's a place my parents live. And some dear friends. They're making me consider a possible return. This will never happen.

Again with the Italian boys. They like me like this. Gender blurred. No putana. But with the voice of a man. I climb into this culture like a comfortable bed. And am embraced.

The security gaurds are needed. They shave their heads like me. (On this, I'm over it, I want it to grow back). Stops all stations so it's a slow ride home. Boredom and fear. Tired and edgy. Hide under corduroy hat. Looks like an Australian. I look at the seat in front of me, here's a boy I could trust. He's got the best nose.

Oh no another lunatic. No surprise. I wish the train wouldn't stop so much. I don't like passengers. Ones that enter in from the dark.

House I sleep in, it's near the sea. I can breathe it in on sunny days. Like this weather. It's clear. Head's messed up. Muddled thoughts. Waiting for the rain to break this summer spell. The sky to fall. This city grows.

Soft lights fade as you walk through the snow.

Sidewalk, constant. Concrete, pavement. I'm here alone. Another late night. The voice in my head tells me to refrain from speaking these words. The voice in my head tells me not to walk. Static lives. Frozen by thoughts of you. The boy in front. It's his hands. His hair. All, right.

Some other ease. The way C boy touches my shoulder. "Hey, Jase". Gets me through these days.

*

Sunday, April 29, 2001

Though I'm not so certain of my actual role in all of this.

I am understood and then suddenly undermined.

He takes his shirt off in the men's toilets.

Something tells me (no ring) he's divorced but he talks of children, as in the seeing of them, I tune out, no sustain, it's something about the way he says vestiti that changes my mind.

I'm looking at PJ. His photograph, his weblog. Sudden feeling of union, ok, so I'm kinda hooked on needing community because if I hear the strains of everybody's freeeee once more on that tired old "queer" radio show there's gonna be some bad feeling over the air.

And so this need for infiltration, if only to just sit there and watch him, he pours the red wine for me, gestures "more" with his eyes, and I get to flirt. Used to be a shy boy until I made him mine... boy.

*

Saturday, April 21, 2001

This C boy, as in: his name. I don't tell him what I'm thinking oh cos you know and I know well that would be the end. It's saturday I'm flirting with the actor, C. He kinda likes it. I feel vaguely, no clearly, ridiculous. Not used to Dean Martin moves. Or am I? The sleaze in me, there as always. Cha Cha moves and I nearly break my ankle. Straining my voice at the very least. They all enjoy the songs. They say it could be a new career. But this is my short time in Adelaide, moving briefly through an illusory fog. C boy, it's those lips.

Home, coffee, lavazza. Buona sera.

*

Monday, April 16, 2001

I could be a father. I am an uncle. I am denied children. In this country they will not allow me to marry. I have very few qualities that general society can accept. My family is shifting. Friends call like needy children. Other people's children. I feed their egos. I lend them money. I never fall in love. I am unbecoming. Alex is my soulmate and he wishes not to see me. He can touch and I respond. But does not see. Alex sleeps with a friend. When he sees me he asks what I’m up to. I turn my head. Nothing. Nothing to you. I am embarrased by my sexual desires. A steady look into his eyes and I'm beside myself, walking away, further each time. All other's boyfriends desire me but do not act. No diversions. No decisions. Girls are accepted in bars wearing hats. I could get knifed. At least with eyes. Sharp words to throw me out. To dress is to cast you, speak lines, raise lights. In frame. I could be a boy stunner too. I could take his hand and love it. This street where I want to find you. Is a crowd. And silent. Your face is not around. You prefer to be a good son. I need to know why. Why this empty house? Why not a single call? On the telephone is my mother. She asks how I've been. I've been well. I've been better.

I’m living somewhere else now.

A bright day outside would not change things.

A childhood dream: you would wait for me after school each day. We'd ride our bikes to the hills and kiss in a ghost gum tree.

Make him start again. Make him write the words. Spell it out this time. Careful not to disturb.

*

Sunday, April 15, 2001

A Loop

His scar. I shouldn’t have waited for him to move away. There should have been some kind of kiss. Flesh, marriage, all of it. To grapple with, him, there. Always at that moment. No real speech. He was a ... given. Not for me to take. I cannot recognise him (now) in a crowd. These streets seem empty. Anyhow. To fall under his drunkeness. Heavy blow.

His shoulder blade. Dug in and for god sake, it hurt me. Couldn’t leave. Him alone. It alone. Whatever it was. That kept me. Hoping. Is now so foreign. Just like that.

His skin. A film perhaps. Not even in view but to know it’s there. Counts for something. Why always the scent, for it carries into my sheets, of him, sweet but like a nightmare. I think on Saturday he’ll find a new husband. He would go out and fuck someone and fuck that boy someone who looks nothing like me (but how can that be...) so dark you wouldn’t know, he’ll, the boy, get a taste of skin and it will burn him too.

His wound. Took a bandage to it. Always mending things. The polite me. Never selfish. Because. I like to be friendly. I like to be nice to people. Give them my whole. To be abused. I may smile. Can it be possible to stop the seeping, bleeding, unhealing gash on my face, pouring out wisdom to no-one, yeah, ok, that’s enough, someone get a car, submit me. There is an outpatient in all of us.

His finger. Watch me flinch. It was the end of the affair with the accountant. I slept by a window or tried to crawl into a wall. I never wanted to be asked but the idea of his finger... Oh... Possibilities to escape were awkward and that night still is a regret. His bed was confused. My mouth sore from trying to satisfy him. Levels of fear, unmatched (apparently) by the need/desire/expectation to be loved.

His smile. Collapsing....

His collapse. All around. No avoiding. It’s my projection. Something, maybe fiction, it’s not for me to say. I can carry out this story and spread the word. How it affects, the effect. NO, that was the scream ok alright yes I hear you and you can smoke that cigarette somewhere else.

His promise. It’s what really damages.

His decline. It’s what I live for.

He's beautiful. And smiles through his teeth, a non smile, an expression of anguish or misunderstanding, did you hear what I said? Are we over? Did we begin. An answer. And if I’m not satisfied I don’t show it, that is, on the surface, gets played down, no-one (not him) would suspect, despite internal investigation into inadmissable evidence. What more proof do you need. It’s a matter of taking that glass, any reflective surface and smashing into that face, destroy those looks, wipe that smile, erase it, all the way down, down, don’t wanna miss a fraction, every slice matters, no slither missed.

He's repulsive. I’ve taken care of everything.

He's taking you. Home.

His car. Void. Pretends it’s not cold. No words. I’m locked up. Thinking back. No going forward. Who did the damage?

His bedroom. Right there.

He's a liar.

His note. Never came. So I wait a bit longer.

His phonecall. Expected. House empty.

His voice. Radio frequency. Stuck. Dials, fucking twisted.

His distance.

He's with someone.

He's with someone else.

His blood. For dinner.

Forget about him. OK.

He means it (this time), baby.

He's never coming back.

His new boyfriend. The traveller. The street kid. Maybe a girl.

He disgusts you (now).

You will never see him (again).

He's open to other suggestions. Other. Never going back. Ever.

Again. From the top.

*

Sunday, April 15, 2001

Tomorrow I must vote to elect a new goverment. Tomorrow is a day of decisions. Serve society. Tomorrow my city is in fear of being turned upon. Of being made mono-cultural. Learning to forget its language. Tomorrow may be a day where friends of mine could be at risk of absentia, of deportation, for being born, for speaking their tongue, to be subject to the evils of fundamental politik. I am afraid that I will be amongst the millions to be strung up naked in a line of other men and women from electrified metal frames, this image telecast across the world to tv dinner married couples as evening entertainment veiwing a close circuit live satellite of our imminent slaughter for choosing to express a sexuality outside of the religious mainstream and joining us on the rack will be all those friends who have made choices to be individuals or who dress in clothes that do not adhere to right wing cultural stereotypes to those perceived to be cross gender god forbid to those who accept these choices and the rock throwing shall begin the death sentences given. And once this transmission ends you may find that all of a sudden no more works of literature shall be written no more paintings will adorn your restored and renovated goverment hall walls or youth art centres no music shall be made no films will be produced no actors will appear on your televisions no candles will be lit no coffee will be ground no breads baked no quilts sewn no postcards sent no vases glassblown no bowls no plates no cups no flowers no gardens no stucco no make-up on no colour. Your world can return to grey and you shall be granted one bare light bulb and gas cooker but no special recipes just what is left of the preserved canned produce you so efficiently stacked in your shelves for that nuclear winter.

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Sunday, April 15, 2001

City.

Sometime later in the morning the accapella singers were marching down my street singing union city songs and I join in not really knowing the words. This is not a political life. This is no manifesto. A word that combines a definitive masculinity and a sense of infestation. Infested masculinity. Infected man. When he kisses me it’s about time. Waited this long. Anger subsides and he says he really did not mean to hit me. He was teasing me. He was having a go. He was my rock’n’roll boyfriend. Doesn’t like government spongers. He is an accountant on the sly. Disapproves of dole sluts. Like me. Although we aim to please. We work for the love of it. Nothing can satisfy him. Not even a song. And then the day came. All that he reminded me of was David Lynch. Soundtrack. Lazing on his couch. He’s got the best hands. I curl into his body. It’s what I want all the time. It’s what I always meant to say. It’s what I want. What I now cannot have. And I’m singing city songs. Tonight I avoid taxis and take the long walk home. The moon. A company. Accompanied by. Ringing in my ears. New Order’s Temptation. Thoughts from above hit the people down below. People in this world we have no place to go. Thinking again of Ewan McGregor. How the song was sung in Trainspotting. Oh you’ve got green eyes. And I’ve never met anyone quite like you before. Then thoughts go back. And I’m sitting in the pub. I’m a door bitch. I’m taking people’s money. Aggressive men drunk won’t pay. And I’m supposed to tackle them. No way. I’m not in love with this city. Although I’ll always come back to it. Return.

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Words © Jason Sweeney