Hung up on a dream, like the Zombies song in a literal way.

Today I: Woke up. Hung up the phone. Got a flat. Need a new inner tube. Took out the special features. Forgot the feature film. Wish my pants were made of cashmere too. Wrote this:

At a restaurant the couple passed the last bite back and forth to each other. One piece of sushi, shared back and forth, 11 exchanges in total, until there was just a piece of rice and it was his turn. He considered it. Short-grain, sticky, white. How might he, he wondered, hold it so that in taking the bite that he must take, leave the bite that he needed to leave. He pinched it. Took half between his teeth, and left the other half between his fingers. He held it out. To her, this was a regular gesture. The way every meal ended. At this point she must either: Bite half of the half, leaving a quarter to be halved again and then presented back to her on a calloused finger tip, or, swallow it. Those are her choices. Ceremoniously, she took the half-grain, and put the whole of it on her tongue. It pleased him. An onlooker felt uncomfortable, like she had just rubbed up against a couple rubbing up against each other.

Where's the cat?

I hear organ and accordion coming from upstairs. And pounding on the hardwood. Raspy throaty hollering. My housemate is writing a song about ritual sacrifice.

I am weakened, meaty, and worried.

Dead and Dying

I regret to inform you of the death of one Lynn Marie Kane, aged 20, suddenly at 12:52 on Friday the 19th of September, 8th year of the second millennium. Kane passed on after a mighty, ongoing struggle of 13 hours with the common cold. Survived by her mother, Lori Dent, brothers Alan, Ben, and Will, loving roommates Suzanne, Alexandria, and Sarah, and sweet pet Moonbaby. She will be sorely missed. Kane's wardrobe will be promptly distributed on Saturday the 20th of September, 2008, along with trinkets and items of nostalgia (including but not limited to: love letters, certain feathers and sticks, and friendship necklaces from the third grade). Kane will be buried under a small rhubarb plant in the forest. Please send flowers and monetary donations to:
Lynn Kane Fund for the Dying and Sarah Ayton, c/o Sarah Ayton
7 Home St.
Guelph, Ontario

All funds will go toward Sarah Ayton's ongoing endeavors in keeping Kane's spirit alive. And beer.

*Obituary dictated by Sarah Ann Ayton. She provides her deepest condolences to the friends and enemies of the deceased.

Reading Stories.

Her uncle told her stories when she could not read. The princess rode a motorbike in a pink leather gown. But she didn't quite buy it, even at three, because in the picture the princess was in a carriage. She told him, no, you're telling it wrong, tell it right. And he would tell it again. The princess rode a donkey through fields of spaghetti plants to a palace made of dragon scales and golden pigeon feathers. "No," she insisted, "I want what it really says, what goes with the picture." Then the princess rode flying dolphins through forests of moon beams to a kingdom in the sky made of rainbows and the colour purple was poisonous, so nothing was purple, and they could never eat plums again.

These spectacular stories frustrated her, and she recognized that she was being had, but she was dazzled anyway, and so she put her most precious clips into his hair and made him pretty in the kitchen for her mother to see.

Her uncle took a risk though, because what if- when she knew how to read and what words meant- stories could never dazzle her the same.

"All words will be considered her last words until they are followed by others."- D.E.

I'm trying to write a "journal" that I'd be O.K. with people reading if I dropped dead. That's what the first page of it says. Just belles-lettres; the whole lot of it, one or two liners accompanied by some butt ugly line drawings. No pages written so far, in the heat of a Thursday night, with incomprehensible swear words and curses. That's a good start. Mind you, I'm not sugar coating it. The F word is in their, oh it's in there, three times even on one quarter size page. But it's different this time; it's nicer. And I go deep too, I mean, I've already got mortality covered on the first page, and then I examine the topic again, less ironically, later on. There's a metaphor here and there, just to practice artfulness, but mostly it's all exactly what it is, artfully uncovered.

It's about 3x4 so my little words seem more substantial and my short anecdotes carry through to a second page, maybe a third. It fits in small purses and big pockets, or it can be tucked into the backside of tight high pants. It says: "I: Smile, You: Return the smile. That's all there is to it."
Then I go on.