hey kids, how about a story!?
Andy Spiers
she sat here.
shovelling food into their mouths, their eyes spoke words of protest and repulsion, regret and desire. into his fork he spoke; -lewk-, he said formally northern, -what’s wrong?-
-we don’t go anywhere any more!- she replied, a hurried sigh following her tongue.
-if we went anywhere, I’d be afraid to lose you; the sun and stars of my life, I’d be scared you’d run off with someone else-, he said desperately and devoid of any traditional masculinity.
-that’s because I would-, her forlorn lust waned now as the final breaths of sun clipped our room through the blinds.
the food I was playing with scared me; I thought if the food was a bear it would have torn my head off, and played in my blood now for teasing it. and the food tasted like trash, like garbage, like rubbish in your shoes.
-why?- he questioned, the voice of his carrying the tears his eyes wouldn’t.
-I’m bored here Derek; I am sick of your love, you have no hate left in you… your life is just ashes-
the face that sunk 1000 ships was not her’s, but her face, strong and rugged and chiselled so neatly and crisply and clearly like stone, was the one that had sunk his heart.
my face curved with apathy.
he looked at the floor, like a shitting dog, like a frightened child to scared to face his punishment. he glared at it, as if the world was beneath him and the houses, where people took a shit and fucked, were below him. he fixated on the cream carpet, the stains where wine had spilled, where fanta has been rubbed in to make it go away.
then, he looked up and his face was bright tomato, a neon red for the ages. –a love gained is never a love lost; Shakespeare said that-, he said finally after a few momentless seconds of silence, golden to me but dire to her.
-he didn’t-, she replied bluntly, gunning down his only closure his only response to his own personal hell, to lose the one so near to you, to lose your transplanted heart would be a cleaner death than this. the passion that burnt in her eyes only gleamed, only sparkled briefly like a shitty fire finally going out to die.
later in the evening, after the dust had settled and the fireflies of remorse had died a little, she packed her things; the constant aura of sad bitterness never fully leaving whilst they were divided in the house. he sat downstairs, chainsmoking; realising his only comfort was something that brought him closer to death, and it reassured him. not that I brought any comfort to him. the division of property was neatly done for someone who didn’t lift his head the whole ceremony. she eventually left, after some three hours after the full ordeal.
he slumped. his whispy brown beard sunken low onto his chest, his brown eyes sullen now, his brown teeth rotten with tobacco and guilt, his brown hair leaving him too. he had no sympathy for himself nor her for what had happened that night, but it happens. shit happens until we become heavier than heaven with the burden of living, and then – poof! – we’re lonelier than god himself.
the burden of living. the weight of existence. the mass of a lonely life. he was crushed by this, destroyed by the thought of being alone from someone who had quelled hate in him, and replaced it with the plastic emotion known as love.
he got up to piss and never came down – a full trooper to the cause of existential breakdowns; how does one live, or do we ever really?
Like the movies
Andy Spiers
so i watch the movies
at night
when no one else is with me
and
i lie and think to myself
what if that happened to me?
then i remember
movies are fiction
my laugh isn’t
and my face turns black with fear and envy and jealousy
so i open my journal to write you a letter
saying we should make a film
so for once
i win
but even then
i cannot grasp
and explain myself
like the movies
can.
Thoughts on early mornings
Joe Stewart
In the early morning, in that rare, fragile hour before the trespassing light reminds us of our own familiar existence, the world is soft and quiet, bathed in the delicate music of sparrows and finches washed clean by a blanket of dew. The wheat in the fields sways to a lazy rhythm that has no direction, free of constraints and the unnatural impositions of order and repetition that humanity desperately pursue to eke out some sense of pattern and structure to live by. Before the sun rises, the world is a blank canvas to be coloured with our desires and dreams; the possible and the impossible merge as one in our minds that, only now free of the limitations of vision, give absurd meanings to the half-realised forms of trees and hedges outside. In the gentle darkness the sum total of existence is condensed into sound, notes sung by the birds that can be either a lament or a song of joy.
The hours before dawn reshape and mould the earth into an abstract artwork that is only beautiful without context – as soon as the sun rises, it is cast into the harsh light of a soulless gallery that through its blank conformity turns the artwork into nothing but a meaningless geometric form, to be viewed by visitors that judge and scrutinise. Some valiantly attempt to find meaning but cannot; the artwork only contains truth for those who see it in its construction. It is the process, not the result, which is beautiful. This is why the early morning is significant; it is a time where preconceptions do not exist and life can be experienced as a process, a realisation of your blood, bones, and endless nerve endings, rather than a series of disjointed settings and situations. The early morning is universal, a sense of what it is to be human – it does not give significance our personal experience that is inevitably restricted by culture, location and situation, but reminds us that we are lucky to exist at all. Thoughts and fears are diluted by the warm blackness that promises solutions and offers answers, or else takes our minds down twisting paths that, for all their turns and tangents, lead to an end. However, this epoch too must end when the humanity rises alongside the sun. You are no longer one of a privileged, half-awake few but a blurred grey face that, despite the definition provided by the light, is no clearer than the next. Savour the hours when the sun is sleeping, because only then is clarity available.
Sometimes You Have Just Got To Stand In Front Of A Mirror, Naked, And Take A Picture
Andy Spiers
if you like to look at yourself
in the same way you like
to look at others
then take a picture
and share it with
someone
you care for!
if you like to get ass,
take a picture of
something sexy
and see where it gets you;
you have nothing
to lose
but your clothes
in the words of
Karl Marx.
if you wanna go about
town
and flash people
the thing between your legs
don’t expect me
to judge,
just expect me
to watch
and laugh
and say
“my gosh you’re a little
silly
aren’t you cold?
it’s december!
fuck!
do you want my jacket? It’ll
keep you warm!”