And Or Theory

Experimental Literature, Information Science

Have a story for yourselves

she woke up sobbing

putting on her blouse quickly and left the door

wide open

to the elements

 

shifting in the cool afternoon breeze

caught for glimpses in puddles or shimmering

 

negligence, she reminded herself

the keys, the lists, the bags themselves

the door hooked slightly as she had lifted from its frame

the corners of sight or the daydream

she watched herself asking

why everything felt so mundane

some days

how the sky would be for her

and sometimes without

swallowed portions of motive

this won’t be a drive she missed

calculating the steps and stumbling

cursing long skirts and blundering about her bag

ribbon and lace, she had told herself

not all these masculine airs and awkward motions

strange curtness and obviousness

 

must be somebody else’s daydream

can’t decipher the parts i’m under

 

bodies filled with this

places needing that

calmly directives beat out themselves

the temples against our pulses

understandably

those pluses, deer in the road again

civility

only the very passionate

must experience, then

harshness, counterfeit realist fear-based concealment

what could I do to love someone she thinks

blasts at herself with carelessness or wrent sorrow

what usefulness we give ourselves

there must be some other as lonely a placement

 

a planet

such abandonment

 

she stops and takes her keys with her

but not in her bag

wants to point them at you when she speaks

wants to see where things might happen before a lead

begs her feet with her eyes

be stable

reassurance, she rustles her keys again as she’s walking

long hallway

open meadow

empty sidewalk

long alley

she opens a door and steps quickly inside

another long hallway

 

the librarian made her sweat

when he caught her eyes

 

stared at the hopeless drifts

those shelves she had dusted for sayings to herself

for the right thing to say

for controlled panic holds based emotionalism

from cover to cover

sheltering fear annoyances or excruciating shyness

bound herself against those commonality romantics

something differently

small figure or decoration

 

for when every sameness

must be shared anyway

 

must be, how well open to receive or how prepared

could you be

or specific as if you would fashion somebody

a body specifically

for themselves against you

or in whatever you choose

those simple sentences

that most carefully sunken liniment

 

a man in uniform blushed

she tried smiling

 

what’s worth as if any option had graced her

as if every choice someplace could assume itself

the cautionary whimsical distress cantor

she delivered herself before daring counter

the stern reliant

easily departing

dependence forever

needed severity and triviality nostalgia

 

“did you get lost?” he said past the guard.

“wasn’t coming or going, how could that be?” she says, startled.

 

Her keys were still in her hand, she fiddled with them sadly as soon as she spoke

hearing the broken or meanness and disappointed in herself

how many parts can rearrange themselves beyond sight

needed places still balancing

against the moments thought

she was suddenly surrounded by the scenery eventually

 

“there is no place for us.” he said, suddenly. As if in a glimmer he had suspected the

background missing and needed to calculate.

“don’t mind.” she said simply, dis-caring toward the options left

 

“would it be easier for you to imagine

no place for any of that?”

 

stowaway distress and complaint fierceness

residual want uncanny wavering distance

shook to herself and mumbled down empty

those rifts felt space of her

glancing too close or keeping parts for display

other imaged pardon about imagination

take whatsoever you find as exactly what you need

disregard the fumbling or surety set valuable scaling

liability exclusion to remove itself

 

any blame or oversight

anything you want to tell yourself

 

observing what you want to see or hear

those wants tell themselves to the obviousness or covet

the disjointed sunken dealt in rumor stigma and lie

you must already know what I mean

what I had meant by that

take it upon yourselves

apologetic segment forgetfulness and shrugging

never get to the story

 

“i will never be

what is expected”

 

cannot give yourself a placement

those tails they imagine waiting behind them

long trains they deliver themselves walking

echoed sounding and reverberating motion

same passed by each day

each sound left patterns of its decay against the surrounding hillsides

of course, everyone heard the same

 

exactly.

 

Caught up between themselves

those longing transcribed bitter endings

or couldn’t guess or see must be

anything else wary weary empty wholeness

complacency that good enough

get by and don’t trouble anyone or yourself

too badly let it pass another day void

 

could we avoid

losing all the love we have?

 

Stranger characters of togetherness

suppose yourself for or against anyone within instinctual

instances of forethought they’ve been stuck and

jarring themselves lately see it’s not anything

but faults to lie or guessing perfunctory regulation type

this would be okay with me or this would destroy my sense of self-defeat

all my suffrage, and then what else would push along

 

workmanship hasn’t been for companions

this might actually be hopeless

 

just checking though but seriously what’s creepy

to themselves I couldn’t guess anymore

no spying or the imaginary where you’re in my dreams

or have your clothes off smiling

angst like, you could probably see that

and it was probably someone else’s memory

or yours from forming someone else’s smile

 

to feel wanted

there’s a sense of ever escaping

 

misstep offset from fields grown over

those cautionary winds or bending suggestions

adrenaline bothered extreme situations

naked on a doorstep, i’ll meet you someday

it’s not the ending you would hope for

criminality would always be my side of things

those missing ledges and defensive glanced piles

of paperwork for or against

 

his mindfulness caught like a calm hand

watched wavering and pulled in

 

escaped artists seen ending life

several times day dreams enveloped

to wonder if you needed this

for whatever sense of involvement

we have never had, or to smirk the injustice

these places are always entirely alone

to the memory of threats

thrown sideways, tied twice underwater

naked hypothermia tragedy one after another

 

if you ever saw or guessed

you were part of their criminal work

 

fought for other sides,

those drawls and needed forethought

premonitions of others’ memory or entirely fantasy

always happening upon something

dreamer sacrificed data against the onslaught

you won’t make it through this one

survived the parting

 

alive, well; these lakes have stories to tell

paranoid contraptions for showing us ‘the dangers’

 

imprints of memory framing others’ reference

any excuse or exclusion for regarding

the formulated angst and trepidation

willingness against reality grudge

sad to see for yourselves, slipped parts

hung from rafters as lively story

always, for an enemy

 

uniformity: if you didn’t hear it from me

you must have heard it from the criminals

 

how will I explain this predicament

having sight for the uses of safety

watching imprints cast lengths of potential

fretting with the analysis

scenarios caution themselves and beware

those pitfalls won’t carry themselves away

as anything but dangers to forgive

 

trust against the odds grumbling

this isn’t my or your story lining possible memory

 

the threats he had told her of the last past these doors

down these hallways

rounding a corner while turned away

a few seconds or moments apart or distant

longing drawing patterns of solitude

would never run into you

training to always miss the event

you tend to

better in the dark, anyways

thought you would knock

could finally answer you

 

would love you forever, don’t know you

worthiness the ugliness and frights, the lure

 

besides, those carefully graphed instances

for instinctual surrender to perfect motion

deliver themselves from the ether

from the conditioning and training

from the chords struck dinging for or against

from sitting alone for years on end

in quiet, empty rooms with no friends or bothering

 

never be belonging

in story never hear it

 

missing, lost stolen, mistaken

slipped in breathless, waiting for commotion

a small, cramped place

everywhere laying around there

something to fill space with void

certain textures or hues from particular factories

what could this produce?

A paperweight, a globe, a handkerchief, a list in the pocket

of an old jacket

empty pins on the wall and smothered smoke

on dark floor, small creaks moved along

sideboards and trim, faint lights

illuminated small glass plates and captured arrays

 

she passed by the opening in the window without looking

watched the door frames and tried keeping herself stern

 

tragedy, these unnamed martyrs

here were the places they kept

to themselves with, warehouses full of familiar rooms

there have been so many stolen

lost gone missing

no names to carry them any

longer, just parts of their ideas

from others

their bones are never found

but here, some mementos for the graphing procedures

for what could be taken and sold

 

they would never find this place, he’s saying

and would never recognize it if they could

 

places they used to live, used to inhabit

these small rooms now

stowed away in compartments and strewn

disarray, found small parts for themselves

had lost sight of the objects

in the commotion of formulation

as any object the same in an entirely different perspective

almost becomes unrecognizable

becomes nobodies belonging

 

the librarian had wandered around the compound

passed through dark alleyways, startled at the man in uniform

 

found different entrance-ways

felt the empty corridor, the hollow floors

saw the disarrayed portions of room

saw the dust covered remnants of paperbacks

or reems of discarded material

recovered small objects

slipped them into his jacket

to remember these by those gone

 

they had rounded a corner hand in hand

proud of the locked up goods, laughing about the missing

 

there was one that just wouldn’t quit

had to bind and steal

there were more who wouldn’t cooperate

but they are long gone now

no remains to dissuade

no problems for the programmers

 

the librarian hid, carefully

watched them pass through the small openings in the window

 

he took another look around

the small room still had the paperweights

the hankercheif, the list and globe

he wondered how many were lost here

how many couldn’t find the placement for their visions

attributed portions of rooms that are not theirs

stolen in objects that no longer frame a way they would recognize

 

The librarian found an exit

opened up to the alleyway and ran away, never seen

 

the mind monitors had gone out

just a day or so

we could hear each other again

faintly, face to face

but without monitors

it now felt horribly out of place

operant remote links to reference

words for when there aren’t any

stolen ways and wares for someone else’s ears

 

they can wear these, characters

like any other suit or dress, shaky informant objects of others

 

the pair were still laughing about the surrendered

and the other burdens or gone forgotten

the nights they would climb and pretend and kill

the disappeared and lost, the missing or assassinated

 

the man in uniform stepped aside for the figure with an impish grin

from height, a burdened hand looked past, listless

neither definitive nor associating itself for even moments

in large, ambiguous movement

took into the door frame and disappeared

setting down the bag, exited again

 

 

((\\ashes, ashes

we all fall down!\\))

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