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/ november is a month of ghosts

a grey knive lurking on the corner of the bathroom counter, incongruously balanced on the edge - just about to fall - the light of day leaked into the room like dish detergent being squeezed gently out of a bottle, and over in the corner, rats rustled in a paper bag. he walked into the room to the sound of the ceiling fan slowly misunderstood. his left sneaker squeaked slightly. paper in his pocket crumpled up and a blue crayon behind one ear. a muddy cigarette in one hand and no lighter. his eyes are silently stained-glass windows inside a church with no congregation, waiting for the hollow bellpulls - the doorbell of the Almighty. he takes out a sharpie and marks an x on the wall. moments later a fly buzzes fatly in and lands on the ��������������������������������������������spot, preening and humming to itself. below, at the baseboard, an ant trundles in. he looks at the mirror. he looks away. outside, a bird hits the window, and all things still, in hushed������������������������������������������mourning. an ignorant cricket looses a selfish mating call and
2003-07-02, 5:29 p.m.

sunrise, a beautiful throat through which all of the souls of the world are regurgitated from

��������� �����violinist of the heart, bowing over the invisible strings that physicians have yet to diagnose as the illness of the Romantics. heartstrings. and every year a miniature little man will crawl into your ear and make his way into your heart, where he will tune them. pulling them tightly. and every month they aren't used, he will tune them. until one day they snap.

you see, when they say you can die of a broken heart, they're generally wrong. it's when those strings snap and your heart explodes. heart is the most unmelodic word. when you sing it, it goes "haaaaaaa --rt." and the 'rt' is what is tacked on by the click of your tongue.

today has been like an orange, peeling itself without human hands. the uncareful shift of emotions, like tectonics. earthquakes inbetween. the toilets gurgle in the bathroom, and the walls are a garish colour that i can never quite remember. cheerleaders pass by underneath the window. one of them loses a hair-ribbon to the wind, which devours it and, limply, it comes to a requiscat-in-pace in the grasp of a tree. yesterday the flag was at half-mast. for what reason, i don't know.

'did someone die?'

it's not raining, and yet it feels like it should be.

'i don't think so.' the songs of departure, beautiful sad flames. a thin orange, anorexic and then fat, purling over the blackness of the horizon. whispers of apocalypse. giant red pickup trucks kicking up grass & mud.

&

yesterday i went to the sea. it tossed like an old woman trying to get out of bed. over the long white stretches of foam, something darkly sad and cold pressed its finger against the confines of the sky. sunset turned into night. i blinked and it was sunrise, the acid reflux of the dawn. a train whistle gurgled, interepreted through an echo from somewhere down in a valley. it sounded terrible and stark, a noise that belonged on a recording in a haunted house. full of static and silence.

i remembered why i had come to the sea.

or walk out to sea and don't come back he'd said to me, in a fury, face apoplexy and shimmering with hate. or walk out to sea and don't come back and i'd said fine. and left. and walked.

i found it strange that there was no pier.

&

i've never had a map, really, and my favourite toy in the second grade was a globe that had come partially off from the southern hemisphere. the equator was a thin strip of blue tape holding the whole thing together, and someone had tugged at it, unbalancing the two parts. i remember inverting the northern hemisphere, tucking it into the southern, like a nesting doll, and carrying it home. i was like God, (ifthereisone), and shuddered at the fate of my creation. would've been a better, more allegorical story if i'd actually made the globe out of clay or something.

stupid cheerleaders.

not that it matters. i pull out my acoustic guitar and sit there, just like a guitar player should. hand draped loosely over the bottom of it, fingers curled round the neck on no particular strings. no particular chord to play. my shadow is born underneath me and claws its way across the sand. i hesitate to strum. i have no pick. the waves are receding, but i don't really notice that. i just know they are. and convince myself that i can see them doing so.

and tired, cold hands. melancholy for the sake of. an ache, a hollowness, and a distinct pressure on the third vertebra of my spine. faint wind outside. and all-too-indifferent sunshine.

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�SEH