reaching jerusalem
frank: let's look to the hands of the weak for the scars of more genuine living. i'm stuck in this intellectual rut trying to find an explanation in the wrong language. weak at the knees but strong at the top of my spine. feeling sick with frustration... i'm doubting like a philistine. frustrated at not having precise answers in a world built on safe equations. so tell me why are you waiting for me to give you textbook answers before you start to move? i can't secure your fading wealth because it sickens me. so let us part the clouds and start your mind in a fresh day, and put aside the things you learned. let's stretch out our fingers and we might just get to that promised land before we suck it's life away. and so we're reaching, trying to shift the focus from the world to myself and those around me who i love. and yes we're reaching, trying to imagine the size of lightyears and trying to save the world that sustains us. and so we're reaching, one building block at a time until the rooves of our houses disrupt jerusalem. so nearly reaching, so close and yet so far. just one last tear-stained exertion to get to that elusive contact.
ben: behold thy walls jerusalem... we're reaching.
[go home]

the end of another great weekend
frank: it's gone. how many times will it take me - this gut-wrench of despair? tell me how can i stop me from breaking? the fear of two steps back to a place where i can't belong. i'm scared that i might speak the wrong words, saying 'home' when i mean 'fear'. i have found everything that i need here, now i'm pulled away again. i don't fucking need this. tracing these well worn steps away from the places i feel safe, from the people that i love, and holding back the welling over from cloudy day to rain, is the hardest thing to do. but i know we'll dance these steps again.
ben: pulled by the heels once again. but i know we'll dance these steps again.
[go home]

scalpel and thread
frank: with eyes closed and a smile she smashed the future of might-have-beens. she tore down all these paper walls and folded them into planes. 'let's cut our bare feel on these shards and bleed out all the lies' she said and smashed it all, and left me to admire. we watched you fly high your wings moulting sparks as you skimmed the edge of belief. despair shook our hearts (filled only with longing that you might land in safer greener climes). waves rose to meet you, not road. foam can't catch as well as silk and so we watched you drown. these waves will take your name, i swear to god. i couldn't hold open my eyes. i breathed for you as you choked. i'm not as weak as i once said. it's all my fault. i would be strong but for the fucking memory. i'll do the best i can. i hold you in my thoughts each day. you started to mean everything the very second i let you go. i'll do the best i ever can, the very best. 'let's heal these wounds with words and tears' she said. my words will be the scalpel, my tears will be the thread that makes us whole again. she opened the skin like an eyelid (whence the healing stream doth flow). let's wash ourselves in this healing stream and learn to swim.
[go home]

i saw that look
frank: we'll shake with the fear and hate of centuries... so there we were, these two great hostile camps, the crackle of radio static between us as communication fails and the struggle changes from being state versus people to being creativity versus stagnation. and would you believe - could you imagine the spark in the air that made us all feel a hundred metres tall? on our side we're dancing to that incessant beat, a thousand hearts as one, twirling in the morning sunshine under a shower of streamers and broken glass. the wall we dash ourselves on is blank perspex, scratched with desperate fingernails, and as that drummer raises his sticks for one last number i realize i haven't seen a single pair of naked eyes along the whole damn line. but then i catch it, that glance of phyrric victory, because you know the day is ours in the end. so stop trying to hide yourself, because i've seen that look in your eyes. we've only got just one chance to make this mark, so we'd better make sure it's the best one.
ben: the morning doesn't hold the same fascination as it once did in my naivety, because the ceiling above my bedroom belies the real situation: the crushing of the human spirit. the greatest crime i can conceive is the relegation of hearts and minds to the answering of the impending question: to live or to die free? there's a force inside of me, some kind of burning fever, that makes me feel alive and beautiful; the creation inherent in destruction, the pulse of dissent, the heartbeat of an ancient struggle. there's a sickness in the air a final yearning clamour - let's lynch the heros of distraction and feel the fire course through our veins down to our fingertips and thus destroy your cities of gold.
[go home]

how to make someone fall in love with you
ben: forgive me for thinking i'm important sometimes i mistake myself for being human but obviously i don't have emotions, i am just a toy and you are my controller. your eyes move my will and your laugh compels me but sometimes i wish i could bash your fucking brains in, watch your insides spill on my emotionless feet feel your warm blood on my face as you bleed helplessly. cut you open make you scream, as my warm tears anoint your beautiful face, i'll break your fucking leg whilst telling you i love you, slice your fingers one by one i will make you pay for the torture you inflict upon me. now the climax - the greatest pain i can concieve and which i wish you to recieve - i condemn you to be me. and all this because i wish to unburden my pain and i'm afraid of the cost. well fuck you then if i can't be the one, save your heart for me. and all this because I simply can't tell you that I love you.
[go home]

the half life of kissing
frank: i resent my first kiss - an introduction to these things i love so well. i was just lying on this bed with my head in my hands trying to make you understand that every single word is a journey from the pit of my stomach to the top of my mouth. and the feet of the faithful kicked dust in my breath and clogged up my lungs with the smell of the death of the hope and the fear and the love that kept me alive, from afar. i was trampled to the ground and i fell on my face and i remembered this place from the dreams of those toothless days when i held onto ignorance like a fucking mask that covered my eyes. insight undesired of where we both stood, and the good in me drained out like blood and seat and waste and broken teeth and the dust i swallowed down. so if words are all i have, then with words i'll build a word where we can burn our days and set fire to the things that we love. when my nerves connect to you, making contact, i spend more time itching stumps than flexing fingers. motorized, you are my support, the sound that helps me breathe you in. the machines we built alone are still not working. running like some melodrama towards the cliff edge. but i am not a character, i'm a ghost. the sickness is with me still, makes my veins crawl with the sting of poisons running through these poor holes in my sick skin. the half life of kissing your lips won't end. i cannot speak with your tongue in my mouth. cross tongued, tongue tied. i can't speak with your tongue in my mouth, with it pressed against these poor aching bleeding gums. i wish you could see me in the night when the rivers from my eyes flood their banks again and bring the rain. thus we end this four year drought. i wish you could see me in the darkest hours when my face blooms anew. i can feel your pulse through my lips. and i would walk down the street naked again, i'd withstand the heat, i'd withstand the pain if you kiss these eyes like butterflies and make me want to live again. if i had 1,000 words to tell you how i feel, i'd throw them all away because none of this is real and i'd make the sound that i have found so deep inside myself - "it's you".
chris: "alien, like a mineral" she said, or at least she meant. soft, constantly whispering caresses erode and abrade. they smooth and briefly perfect but eventually they annihilate. running, dancing, laughing, playing. i'd gladly relive this pain if that were all it took not to forget but never to have known. slowly, by degrees, my spirit ebbs away. the unknown seeps in. when the entire surface of my heart is covered in scars i'll be ready.
ben: now we fall back into friendship... this cold wind will blow away the warm sun. this autumn friendship formed of sorrow. we have a long way to go, this image imprinted on my mind. maybe we can all meet again junesometime.
[go home]

*sigh*
frank: and so at last i can look, peeking through wired and crisscross fingers at these marks that we made, knife blade deep in the wood. we thought we'd marked our names to last through all the years - a record of our aspirations. we'd come back and look when our joints didn't work. i never used to understand why my father sighed. these plants smile at me now. i wish i could say i was old and wise but bark has started to heal, fading like breath on a window. i never used to understand why my father sighed - his once-a-year friends waved away... i used to know the way back home so i'd wander for days. i left a trail so i could find myself but it faded away. and so i tell you this with an honesty i'm not sure i understand - i'm paralyzed and terrified as i watch these friends slip through my hands. and now i think i understand why my father sighed: we tried so hard but we keep feeling dead inside. i used to know the way back home but the memory ahs gone. and when i tell you i'll be home again it's because i'm sure where i belong.
[go home]

everything starts to melt
frank: the first dawn for half of the year, my words the first cuckoo. now the springtime, here comes the summer. i can feel the frost cracking under my feet as the fresh spring rains patter a beat and i know that things are starting to change. and sap like blood flows through my veins as i hear the flowers start to open again and there's life here all around. the grass grows around me and lifts me clear and redeems the baby stalks that my heavy feet were crushing. and the birds sing a tune the people know (we know this tune all too fucking well). and i remember the winter, how we hibernated to escape the season's grasp of grey. morning has broken. break in half the first half of the day, smash the ice-sheets that denied us light and start to grow. i feel the prick of pins underneath my unblemished skin. red fluid-soaked quills push their way through my epidermis. my feather's fluff themselves in the cold morning atmosphere. i spread my wings like god over the dark abyss and fall. here comes the summer, the season's end. and all the crowds sing in unison: "no pasaran".
chris: un flocon de neige doux, porté par un vent cruel, se posa sur ma langue et me remplit de joie. exactement comme je le remplit de dégout.
ben: this is the springtime of our revolution... it's-time-to-save-the-world-from-man.
[go home]