I Used to Work There, Here

        

 The need for thirsty makes us power, the need/

the need for thirst is the need for this:  thistle

The need for this is thirsty, it makes us puzzled, this need

this thirst is busy, it needs you to desist, resist

This need resists you it is this:  grist

for the mill or is it just gristle?

This stubborness chews and chews and chews and I can’t

solve it

Whistle.

The need shivers. The need is behind the backdrop behind the screen that tells us this.

The needle. Otherwise, just this:

a place, and in it

the power to make thirsty

the power to shrivel

we measure this in absence, against

Is This Someone Else's Despair?

Is This Someone Else’s Despair?

Does meditation on the bus “count?”

First, what does “count” mean? Count means numbers, which are, of course, facts. Means addition, subtraction, means substance, and means matters more for being hard. Count means walking and talking at the same time, a way of being a dance. Count also means you get credit so in the end it all adds up to something you have supposedly accomplished. Good for you. Hang this on the wall.

What does it mean to “watch” your language?

As the bus driver said to the teens, after the old man exiting complained:

But language is not visible. If we watch our language, what is it we see? Our breath? The words themselves written in black ink on our skin, criss-crossing the creases within? Our “meaning” which is a picture illustrating what “counts” (see above)? My language watches me through the window until we pull forward again, the lights having turned green.

What is your diagnosis?

This one is easy. It is exactly everything you have described.

Which is louder?

Your mood, your mood is always louder. Except when my mood is louder. Someone says “references” and that gives me something to enclose. My mood today was subverted by my hunger and my having not opened the failing application until at least mid-day. So a good half of the day was not wasted. When I looked again your mood had gone away. My mood was curled up like a cat in the windowsill. The running water was all I could really hear.

What do you make up outside of your head?

This is where reality is made. Reality is also made up inside your head, because the outside is not so different from the inside, in this case. Inside is smaller. Outside has more rain. The head itself doesn’t really care but goes on making this up. See?