we will be arriving shortly
by froydir
a series of texts written in july 2015 during a trip to malaysia & singapore
you can sleep on the plane if you can sleep on the plane. i let the sound lift me across the border right next to the emergency exit. all safety instructions disregarded do you want to go
in the morning. making batter for pancakes. boiling water for tea. it feels familiar. although the kitchen is not. although we can’t find the things we need but morning is here. it’s time for breakfast. & we look for bananas there’s papaya in the fridge. & suddenly i’m transported back in time. the smell of burning coals. dogs barking in the distance. rose is calling the twins in a tired voice. it feels familiar. & a little lost. i didn’t understand how life could be over at twelve. but rose knew looking down a long road of filling holes for other people. a hole in the dirt at the end just for her. & i’m making pancakes again in an unfamiliar kitchen. but only because i want to
night on the mountainside banana plants line the road. green fruit ready for the picking. it is night & we are driving. the dogs are in the road. on the lake we are eating all the animals. table like a slaughter. carps lurking in the murky water. undead ghosts. i am hiding in the blindness again. you use your mobile while you’re driving. you want to get old. you want to live for a long time. please say twice as long. i want to hear about all the scars you plan to leave behind. about the house we’ll live in. it doesn’t have to be here.
eating soft boiled eggs for breakfast. a cucumber with salt & the kiwi i found in the back of the fridge. when i go out the people in the street are all buying or selling. humanity is broken & draining into the open sewers along the wall. the skinny cat in black & white with a limp hunting for scraps under the tables is flickering like an old film reel inviting you to pay attention. tonight i am full of knives & none of them my own. all the banter comes in racist flavours here. just pick your favourite hate . i want to sit in your car. for us to drive into the mountains. let’s do our work. let’s not buy anything. we can take the cat.
vertigo pulls tenderly at your gut on the narrow balcony. thrusting its concrete canyon both ways. the latitudinal wrench in time bleeding hours. into the muggy night every star here is fallen & glitters on the ground. a river of light/ passing by your mountain building. where you are not home. where you are not familiar. where there is no need for you to belong. the knife still burns inside the sheath of your heart. & you want to pull it. in this place where you do not belong. where you do not need to make sense.
there’s a draft coming from the airconditioner & it’s making me sleepy. downtown people are letting off fireworks short staccato bursts of noise lighting up the sky. someone practising their drums until rain comes down in a shushing sound. the drone of a moped runs its spool along the river of light outside my window. there are children crying & the smells of late night cooking in the homes behind the honking horns. today i didn’t see a single animal that wasn’t human. at the store an old chinese lady made me pu erh tea in a small clay pot. & served it seven times in tiny cups. glowing like the light of spring on the grassy side of a hill. her husband wanted a picture & told everyone to write their names on a piece of paper. he asked us three times where we were from & each time the answer was the same.
jacaranda blooms glowing blue blush. under foot seedpod canoes ferry us across the sky into a new day that’s what they have out east. every day a new day sun rising from the sea like home. the small hollow on my chest where water collects and aches a drain into soft textile weave. bag of heavy sack of moist soil waterlogged sphagnum mimic bark flecked pockmarks & freckles. little signs of worthiness & burns across the high places where you pass too close to space too close to falling. it is icarus again or the other one. grieving on the ground
today i wanted to die again. i am so tired we went to their shop and it was called sophy. there were cats in the warm wind coming down the alley. one heavily pregnant with beautiful stripes on the legs. everyone was nice & it made me happy how they felt safe. i keep doing the same things every day but only because i don’t know what else to do this one was a monday & it made no difference the red tabby tomcat climbed onto the parked car & i had nasi goreng. i don’t like it when we eat together but you’re not having anything. i want you to be hungry. it feels wrong. when you bring me drinks i know that you are trying to take care of me & i wish things could be that simple. that i could be that simple. you say you like how complex a person i am. i wonder if that holds in the dark i’m not sure that’s even possible
bye bye, i say buy everything & the place is mine windows open. doors slamming voices in the stairwell speaking words i don’t understand & it feels okay it feels everyday. somehow like the trees & shrubs. the smells a rotting banana. the thin smoke of coals just the lingering ghost of an old fire like my stale longing for the lost country of childhood rather than for childhood itself it is always the place & what it evokes. how it worms its way in. what it does to the body wind moans around the corners of buildings even here licking moisture from the washing on the balcony. although nothing ever dries in this place except skin. except skin after swimming in chlorine the shadow of a spearhead leaf is on the bottom of the pool palm fronds getting in my face in the shower tiger-eye gold & film night darkness on the walls caught somewhere between bond & that unpredictable woman in a french film noir hero-killer or victim-murderer. although that was not what i meant that was not what i was trying to say. words get swallowed when the stomach jostles the heart. when someone turns away. turns down the volume mid sentence
or turns it up until the noise becomes meaningless the 24/7 of the river of sound outside my window. & then there’s rush hour everywhere. backdrop to the balcony scene where you’re grilling saffron chicken kebab fanning sparks into the night. fireworks going off between the buildings across the road. the rapports muted behind the rushing current of traffic cars are all the time. so different from the close faced hours of empty streets back north
no one is as tall as a building. ever the child does not give their name. only says aaaah aaaaaaah this thing that i can only comprehend in small bites slug gnaws on edge of leaf because it is friday again. & again - i have two of those an unrepentant green coconut you will have to split open with a heavy knife. scrape out the tender flesh. drink its milky blood you will have to
it’s vegetarian, you say. i lift my arms let my hands brush through the hanging threads. like pandora i want to learn all their names. all the different kinds of beings wishing to be a tree. wishing for planthood. not just ours. so many others busy here some people notice things. others don’t seem to see there’s a child with a limp & missing arm. you know how sometimes people just pretend & that makes me sad.
i was dreaming of you. your hand falling open. a burning cigarette tumbling to the ground. i wanted it to set fire to everything casually. in a mindless way. let the world leap into a forest of flame. sometimes tenderness is an unbearable ache that bruises. & it changes nothing. & it’s just the same echoing chamber. the same restless ghost passing. eyes open or shut. it’s not that i don’t see. i am just too tired to feel. & i don’t know how to wake up anymore
you want to buy something you don’t want to ask me if i want water but i say no. we can eat our lunch we can have takeaway tea & extra hot water second infusion. tracing time with tracing more time on paper. people being loved nosy neighbours make me feel uncomfortable
put your bags in the overhead compartment. your seatbelt is fastened but have you ever seen an actual life vest under the seat or an oxygen mask automatically deploy. naked feet sliding down the side of the wing i bet those flaps could cut you right open for the sharks a nice slice of tragedy.
did you eat? cheap cheap the acoustics of the room are deafening an australian burr is telling tales about their kids
i hate you, they say every morning before school & this is healthy this is a healthy way dragon well tea & a coffee i ask for hot water second infusion that’s what i want to do with everything second infusion we should eat now
we just want to sketch & talk everything is fresh. everything is spicy. everything is impenetrable & described in a language we cannot decipher. the old man bangs the plastic plates. wipes the table. scrapes the lot into a bucket not horridly sweet like the one from last night. there’s a cat museum & a cat outside the museum & all the cats have blunt tails. a man walks around the room & sprays the base of each pillar. you say, they clean
everything all the time i think he’s spraying poison.
evening is a large crowd of people tables in a certain order chain of circles. drawing matches i tell you no unless you take off your hat. take off your hat there are lots of flowers. bland but only for me everything else is exciting.
i sit by myself over breakfast but not for long so novel to be with these people. never at home i eat banana & eyes go round. offer a bite & tobias is a friend for life openly flirting. all eleven months mouth stuffed like a hamster a claimed plastic spoon to brandish. who cares about lost luggage let’s make some new
thoughts breaking down in the afternoon hammer. skin longing the level of sound is coming down. fewer people much closer conversations talking deep & getting somewhere there’s substance. in the square pouring down heat we stand where the rickshaws park but not now. overlap along the curb where we’re looking for shade mind like a burnished shield melting in the agony of hephaistos scorned & maligned. a surprise worm in your mouth all of them like liquid sugar stunned both ways.
in the court at the round table where we feel like the city has touched every part of us. i am charged with goodbyes you are missing & people keep asking me where you are. i say, i don’t know but you will find me. there are beers & beers & more beers people i feel tender towards leaning into the conversation. until the next time & then you don’t
the sun is out today as i move through water reflections trace pale lines across my skin like. ghost of a ghost line in my mind. the softness of a moth in the night. because we left & are returning & already i am thinking home. & there is a giant moth in the atrium when we arrive. you say it is just a baby the adults are twice as large. in the morning it has folded its wings & died. as simple as that no one is here
thank you for reading Š froydir 2015