MY SOUP IS MOSTLY TEA

You told me to be better, so I'm trying.

[gildedspurtle]

*Sentimental Outburst*

Really, we could leave Any time. We choose to stay Here for each other.

[gildedspurtle]

Leftover

One lonely hotdog Slouching over in a jar. Sad mystery meat.

[gildedspurtle]

Grain Rhymes With Brain haiku

My head is so small. Sometimes it won't even wrap around grains of sand.

[gildedspurtle]

Please pardon the spelling errors and sloppy handwriting, I scribbled this in the dark.

[gildedspurtle]

Gross flavour combos I shouldn't know about

Toast after toothpaste Sardines before chocolate Anything carob

[gildedspurtle]

Swaying Behind Frosted Glass

So many hours are missing. They passed by without being greeted or appreciated. There are only goodbyes here. Sometimes we stand out on the lawn and let our neck bend slowly back, sending our field of view upwards. Our bare feet on cool wet grass. The light from inside bouncing off each blade. The rest is darkness against the stars. Sparkling balls of gas and matter burning throughout time but drowned out near and far by the glowing of our many street lamps. Occasionally these spectacles in the sky are obscured by the sliding of clouds across the night's quiet surface, and the starlight takes a few more years to touch us. We're usually watching tele though, aren't we? A different kind of glow, where all the world is flat and depth is relative to understanding or visual illusion. The grass doesn't take long to grow back once it gets some water on it. There are hollow spaces in a few separate areas where pavers used to be, or where the dog has recreationally unearthed a soggy hidden treat. The insects busy underneath those concrete covers relocated into transforming garden beds. Currently slaters are my worst enemy. They coat the flowers and lettuce leaves and chew and munch until bits of green disappear before the morning. That green was supposed to keep us going. We should have known that bite; that healthy sensation of taste. They are so unrelenting - slaters, and caterpillars, aphids and mealy bugs - a trait which I have to admit to envying to some degree. They are always so persistent. I feel like I don't get going until we inhabit the hour to stop. To slow down to the point where our body knows only how to breathe, and circulate small particles, and dream about unusual situations involving pursuant giant creatures, or getting lost in a cave with an old friend from school. Do you think our dreams would be different if we fell asleep gazing into the stars and getting lost in their twinkle? like falling into curious eyes, like shapes swaying behind frosted glass. That is to say, different compared to those dreams we have after noting the various limitations of ceilings? It's tragic, isn't it? Our soulful gaze plastered to the plaster. Do you wonder, then, if our dreams would be full of vast possibilities having been inspired by that living starscape? Where everything is massive and awesome and changeable and inching on the level of atoms and solar systems nearer and nearer to our personal bubbles. Maybe we'll find ourselves lost in cavernous acquaintance, with a beautiful sense of closeness to everything, and nothing, simultaneously? As I look up into the dim that is my bedroom ceiling, broken up solely by the tiny blip of light shining from a smoke alarm in need of new batteries, I can't help but feel that the distance from here to the rest of the universe is bigger somehow. It is harder to reach or to comprehend. There's a huge gap sometimes between 'feeling alone' and 'being alone', isn't there? I feel usually like it's an equal mix of both, though that shifts considerably from one to the other, I think, when staring up at the stars. When our field of view develops a familiarity with waves of light sent crashing towards us from billions upon billions of hours and years and geological formations ago. Contrary to what I said previously, about experiencing sensations of distance, I actually feel closer to you now as I occupy this spot. While you comfortably occupy yours. Both of us unable to sleep because we're thinking too much about how long and short our lives are. We are of one mind, spread over separate locations. Like butter stretched over pieces of toast cut from the same loaf, like a single drawing of thoughtful intensity released by pencils in a sizeable spectrum of colours. What are you looking at right now? In this very early hour of the day. The time directly following yesterday, but too early yet to think of tomorrow as tomorrow. This exact moment. Do you have fleeting images screening across your eyelids as they're closed? Or do you have them open, and like me you're impatiently enduring a few short hours of quiet uninvited alertness? Soon to lose that hope of rest in the general rise of sunshine. Our feet are no longer in that cool wet grass outside, they're warm and pressed into the folds of blanket on the bed. Any movement out in the street is obscured by the sliding of curtains across the window's quiet surface and the sky is blocked by the roof and it's tiles. Whispering into these surroundings I say 'goodbye' to the stars, and to the night, slowly I close my eyes, and wait for it's reply. I saw light slide across lights about a year ago. It was only for a second but how old that flash must have been, and how slow I must have looked if it had, just for that instant, noticed me. Like a speck of dust on an unkempt crowded desk, like a faint signal from a smoke alarm calling for new batteries. And still the hours are missing.

[gildedspurtle]

Surface area (Wish you were here)

[gildedspurtle]

I don't have to tell you what this is about. You will just know and we'll exchange feelings of compassion and gentle waves of understanding over long distances. These intense connections we embrace through sharing our hopes and fears and expressions without words brings us closer together in a way that's practically cosmic. Like energy. Like matter in space colliding and falling into synchronized orbits. Like perfectly salted chips.

[gildedspurtle]

Nausea Blues Haiku

Bad bad Nausea, How dare you impose like this. You are unwelcome.

[gildedspurtle]

Triple grape

[gildedspurtle]

Look, I don't know what else to tell you. We can't see the forest through the trees, and I wish it was as simple as skipping pebbles across the suburbs.

[gildedspurtle]

Midnight Pains

How do you convince others that you've significantly changed on the inside, without knowing how exactly, or how you would articulate it to them even if you could? Slow and gradual change is infrequently obvious, right? I feel as though I've changed. My interests have shifted, my diet is different, my old clothes rarely fit and I sleep more than I paint which is an unfortunate and involuntary turn of events due to extended illness. Everything is in the awkward throws of finding a comfortable place, and currently I can only tell others that "I don't feel well", without a good explanation of how, or why, or what anyone can do to help. This is beyond frustrating, and complicated, and lonely. This is not fair, and overpowering, and largely unwitnessed. This just is, but at least I can feel, and ask questions, and have faith in an answer. I feel as though I've changed, and I hope that people notice.

[gildedspurtle]

You talk to the neighbours more than I do. I'm not very good at confronting others with friendship like that. You charge at them and pounce. They have nowhere else to go but reluctanlty into your grasp. How do I know you then? How did we begin our friendship? I'd like to think that it was mutual, and that you saw in me a compatible soul. But in actuality I was probably shocked and desperate and grateful, and you pushed me into our relationship just as you do with all others. With such a kind pursuit. I think it's fairly clear that I am not an equally opposing force. You know this, don't you? You throw your amiable weight around, and I am accustomed to brace. Together we shall make an uneven pair. Let's eat pancakes for dinner, Em

[gildedspurtle]

The Moon

Grief is a sun without veil. It's light, shed in unforgiving rays, acknowledges not distance or time, but intensity and the degree to which it colours our purpose. The sun is a revelation for us of our expanse. The limits and boundaries we encounter in branching out; in influencing our surroundings and reaching into the lives of others. I will touch only a small fraction of what I can comprehend, and impress myself upon a tiny sample of people. My own light will shine briefly. The sun dries the hours applied to paper and bleaches the pigments mixed so passionately into paints. It makes clear and cold the last remainders of our efforts, and we speak often of the lifespan of the sun as it is - in fact - our own. Mostly it is the globe which illuminates the end of days, and we look to the moon for sweet relief. To find it chilling in the night sky after a hot sunny day. To be comforted by it's tender pull, and push, and to enjoy how well it grounds us even with all of our ambition. To see it look down on us like the loving gaze of all those close to us who are lost. It will never turn it's back on us, it will only take a break to honour the rising sun. But what do we think of the moon if the sun is so powerfully responsible for life and death? Our eventual cosmic burnout. I think the moon is a rounded swell of hope and warm perspective. It gently spins with us in turn. It reflects with us in the passing of days, and with moving so boldly across large stretches of water. It's not so cold in space when our hearts pump faster at the sight of an old friend who channels their surrounding light; sending it back in our general direction. A kind light to brighten up an otherwise dark time. To encourage hot blood to pulse throughout our weighted flesh and bone. Keeping us well rested before and after each long or short rotation of tomorrow. Jules Verne spoke about the moon with a view quite different to my own. That is to say, he wrote of the moon like it was an old drum without beats, or a river bed without water to flow. A floating fossil. He said "...this earth will one day be that cold corpse; it will become uninhabitable and uninhabited like the moon, which has long since lost all its vital heat." and I'm not sure that I can agree with him. My objection, for whatever it's worth, regarding the moon's generous warmth, is that it's presence with us, and in space, is in spirit. That our essential relationship - being between us Earthbound humans and the moon (albeit gravitational) - is for the most part emotionally projected, but with such important necessity. For as long as we exist, so too will the moon as a goal, or a limit, or the elemental likeness of the moon and the Earth; both having been fragments from a burst which will probably remain a secret only for them to know, and for us to constantly theorize. We compare things frequently to the moon, don't we? as a point of reference, or of devotion, and always of closeness despite shifting or perceived physical distance. Our souls find their place with the moon, just as travelers follow the path of stars, and baby animals trace the footsteps of their parents. The moon means to us more than we give it credit for in the course of our very ordinary days. We speak of it to the people we love, or as the peak of imagination in our ventures. The moon inflames within us great inspiration or insanity, and we feel as if the universe might stretch out forever in it's subtle glow. The sun is too harsh a light on each horizon for us to think of anything more than falling off the Earth's rounded edge. The moon is a single step out into the unknown, and great journeys are supposed to start like that. "I love you more than anything" they said. "I love you to the moon and back" I replied. "I wish I could bottle the moon" they said "... Just to capture this moment". We glanced up at the moon and watched our ripples confront it quietly in the water. "If I could reach up and give you the stars, and the moon, and everything else inbetween, you know that I would" they said. I whispered back "I'm glad that I happen to know you, this sweet yet irresponsible brand of gift-giver that you are". We felt the carpet between our sinking toes, like the soft beginnings of a gentle tide, and we slowly breathed in the turbulent atmosphere which has been billions of years in the making. "Is that a smile overwhelming your serious face?" I teased. They chuckled, and rolled their eyes, and shook their head, and said "Yes. You have me beaming like the moon. Are you happy?" "Yes" I said "...But only when I'm blue." "How many moons does it take to change a lightbulb?" they asked. "Only one if you do it tomorrow" I replied. "You know I'm crazy about you, right?" They said. "Yeah, I heard the lunar cycle does strange things to the mind" I laughed. We exchanged grins, and looked out into the everlasting darkness together. Our shoulders nudged contently, every time a light broke through. "Do you know what your nephew got up to today?" She said. "Oh no, what now?" I queried. "He instigated a mooning line at Day Care!" We both laughed, and very affectionately discussed what a troubling display of rebellious alignment this was. He always shoots for the moon. They made profound noises of emotional exhaustion and soul searching. It escaped through their mouths, but it sounded out from the deepest regions of their head and heart. These winding exclamations echoed through the trees, and across large open spaces; climbing up and down the hills along the way. "Every night, why do you howl at the moon like so?" I spoke with care. "Because I don't like to feel alone" they said, holding directly the pierce of your wandering glare. "... I hope that one day I will hear a call back" they continued "...and we'll feel closer, no matter the distance, simply for having a better sense of one another" We listened to the silence for a while. It was interrupted only by the creaking of branches and the hush of our controlled breathing. I traced my hands over the dirt at my feet. This was once the surface of heavenly impact. "Were you ever part of the visible night sky?" They asked. "Why?" I replied. "Because I can see the moon glistening in those beautiful eyes." The conversation picked up from there. I blushed "You had me at 'the moon'" Our hopes and dreams inhabit the moon. It's influence on us, and our interactions with others, reflects it's long lasting vitality. Each time we see it, it reminds us that we are alive. The moon is a hot potato.

[gildedspurtle]

Old Leaves

There's something significant to be found in the crunching of leaves. Branches from a tree extend slowly yet ambitiously upwards, with each single leaf soaking in the light sent directly to us from a flaring sun which has set out to generously warm this part of our galaxy. Our atmosphere would only be possible with light reaching out in this way. With light fueling the trees to oxygenate our gaseous intake, and to subsequently absorb our exhalations. When leaves are shed from a tree changing between one seasonal shift to the next, they dry and coat the ground over which we walk and run and say our prayers and feel attached to as our sense of self and place and loss and strength develop in their different layers and complexity. As they crunch and crackle between our shoes and the ground we are bringing one closer to the other in a union that speaks to me of regeneration and enduring lifecycles and relationships. As old leaves break down and rejoin the earth they are born again through all the leaves which take their place. Every year when we are lucky enough to crunch leaves beneath us, and enjoy the dapples of shade to gather in with good friends and family, we should feel the wholehearted weight in each step. We should enjoy the play of colours and texture on the ground through which plants have grown and insects crawl, and rejoice in our mutual exchange of breath. We should live our lives step by step, crunch by crunch. We should met up more and step on beautiful leaves together.

[gildedspurtle]

WHAT A WEIRDO

I can actually hear my dog outside doing night laps (running loops of the backyard in the dark). How do I always pick out the weird pet? It's like 3am! Everyone is trying to sleep!

[gildedspurtle]

Briefly Lit Spaces

We usually follow each other into the deep. I sit on the couch eating twice cooked pasta (three times if you include the microwave) and wait for the night to collect me. You bang on the back door hoping to blow through like a strong breeze; picking all of my papers up and shaking them from one break to the next. My hands are unsteady. I can't tell if it's the lack of practice and coordination, or if my muscles are getting lazy with all of my inactivity. I focus the available energy on a single imprecise brush stroke. It carries us close to the edge but we can't sit there together well. I dislike how many times I have to stop what I'm doing in order to take my jacket off, or to put it back on again. I should be consoled by the fact that this is the beginnings of better health; that the antibiotics are working. Mostly I find it irritating. Maybe I should let you in? That eager breeze that you are. You crash and sook and drag your face across the glass. A membrane of solid sand lies between us and how the nature of our domestic life has changed. Once you would have howled at the moon, and I would have looked up into the sky without ceiling, or the closeness of walls, and all of my soul searching would have been done by gazing into the stars instead of glaring at the empty cavities of the fridge. I'd kill for some cake. This distance between us now is simply there because I'm fragile, and afraid of your unpredictability. I think you've sized me up pretty well despite this, and take every occasion to prove it. We travel from one room to the next - me on the inside, you on the out - watching our shadows float across tall windows and briefly lit spaces. Just chasing. When the lights turn off we finally catch and merge into each other and everything else in between, like brush strokes - with me on the inside, you still on the out.