Jealousy; I wear it like an ill-fitting suit.

i should be more secure not less. i should be less possessive not more. i'm scared. of how i feel.

promiscuous

so why should i care. i see you dancing with her on the floor of the club so small and packed, you can't help but push up against her. your hands cup only the air around her, but she moves like you are cradling her body in the shake and way of the music. you always say fucking is fucking and love is love; then after that you say, "i love fucking".

i'm not actually a wallflower, it just seems that i have become so. i think i'm a little cool, a little funky, at least a little unconventional. but around you i seem to clam up, or perhaps you think i'm ordinary and so my nervousness becomes construed as boring. i sit because i thought you don't dance, but you jumped at the chance with her. caught out, i said my feet hurt.

you're dancing and she's biting her lower lip tentatively and invitingly though there is nothing tentative about it. i'm only watching her expression because i can't stand to look what yours is. so when the guy comes up to me and speaks in my ear, i don't stop him when he sits down. his hand is on my knee and i laugh loudly; you might look over from the dance floor - or you might not. i tell myself i'd like it either way.

you two are fucking each other with your eyes and intentions already. if i let this guy take me home or a nearby alley and fuck me you'll be relieved to find me not sitting here so you can do the same. but who will be calling who promiscuous tomorrow?

panda beats

bruised in the morning, waiting for a storm. we make a living out of talking, and expect something to be done. why should a feeling in the middle of the night dictate the truth we speak to each other in the light of the demanding afternoon? Afternoon is indeed demanding, my favourite time of the day. dishonesty is difficult in the harsh heat and light of two o'clock to six o'clock. even if you lie in the afternoon the afternoon won't allow me to care. it's so demanding we all feel like sleeping.

why don't we talk serious in the afternoon? our days are nights, when we think we speak with refreshing clarity over a glass of vodka or beer, making deals and striking a balance. but it's easy to be smooth at night, when we come out of our shells, understanding the drama of an evening's conversation, knowing that the night makes us more than human, and afraid of mortality.

in the afternoons the fan blades spin slower, the spaces between drumbeats get longer, the air gets thicker. as the limbs get heavier so too truth and lies both are harder to find. drifting off sprawled on the floor of the room, i wish the rest of my life was an afternoon.

redorange sunset

a girl is talking. a tree, she says, can be planted by someone, and watered, but it is not belonged to that person. it is not, she continues, a person's responsibility that it grows or sees the sun: in soontime, it is its own living thing with a life and responsibility all its own. a tree does not owe it to a person to either bloom, wither, live or die, and whether it is stunted or tall is no one's concern but the tree. no person can make the sun shine brighter on it, no person can make the roots take in more water. no person can look at a tree and say, 'this is my tree.'

he was preoccupied but now he walks towards her. the metal and wires of his work ring out. "You're so beautiful, and so right," he says. "But you need to be quiet now." He puts the ball gag on over her mouth, and tightens the strap. he bends her over, unbuttoning her jeans and yanking her panties down.

redorange sunflower

a girl plants a tree. she waters it and lets it grow. small birds nest in it, and insects crawl on it. the sun shines on it, and the branches widen. there are no fruits but flowers fall sometimes in large-ish numbers when the wind blows. the girl reads under it, sleeping in the light of the sun low in the sky when tired. three times she shelters beneath the branches in rainstorms, confident that the tree will not let itself get struck by lightning. she buries a box of old secrets like a time capsule in the soil of its roots.

the girl is soon a woman. she is standing a little way off, next to a car with a man who is surveying the land. "This tree is obstructing the path of the proposed road," he says, checking his map. "And it's not marked on this chart."

"I don't know it either," she says.

i killed you to save myself.

we sat in the same place for days, looking looking looking. we took notes, some pictures, ate food and drank room temperature water all while looking watching looking. we called back every few hours, sending back messages. we were looking for a weakness, sitting on a raised vantage. nobody realised we were watching, which was of course the way it ought to be.

on an afternoon three of the fellows came out with a fourth, one of our own guys. they beat him to a pulp while asking him questions. while their backs were turned in an engaging argument about whether to choose the monkey wrench, tire iron or bolt cutters next, he made a remarkable escape into the generous confusing cover in our direction.

we got startled. if they started scouring the area, we would be found. my partner and i looked at each other, then over to him.

the three had decided on the bolt cutter and realised he was gone. they fanned out to look. they shouted and fired shots randomly. finally he got up and ran.

he must not lose them, my partner said.

are we going to leave him to die, i said.

are you going to drag us into die too, my partner said.

he ran and somehow their first bullets missed him. he managed to throw a stone back and they slowed their advance on him.

i took out the rifle and gave it to my partner. my partner gave it back to me. we can't compromise our cover, she said.

he waited behind a tree trunk throwing stones. he was going to run for it when the three reloaded. he would be lost to them if he made it here. he stood up and threw another clod of dirt. they shot back. i shot him then. the three stood over his body and argued amongst themselves who had shot him and how. Then they dragged his body back and put it on a stick.

we left our hideout two days later. then bombers came and razed the whole fucking mountainside. so much for maintaining our cover.

you don't belong here

why should i be surprised. because boring guys don't go out with cool girls. i might as well have hoped to go out with a supermodel or one of my teenage idols. After a momentary dalliance, what's there to keep you interested in me? the jet-set life is no place for blokes who like playing with cardboard boxes. crap in bed, staid, ordinary, incompetent at the arts.

wake up wake up. it's time for good bye.