1. |
Favorite Flavor
01:37
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Extra waiting; desperation; holiday.
Favorite flavor, baby.
Not one cool thing to say.
Rainy days in excess, out-of-sync displays.
Favorite flavor, baby.
What you got going on today?
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2. |
Permeating
04:11
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I’m driving 80 past the exit sign for Erie.
You’re sleeping adequately, insufficient, wearily.
I feel an intimately inter-person alchemy.
My brain is ectoplasm endlessly becoming,
undoing square knots tied by Cub Scouts toiling ceaselessly.
You’re sitting on the couch. I’m watching you. You’re watching me.
Fall down and sit right where you fell. Don’t bother getting up.
It’s fine. I mean, I vacuumed before.
I dreamed about this just a week ago, it felt so real:
just you and me alone on the floor.
I was sure.
We’re hauling couches up the stairs to our apartment.
I’m sweating in the plush and losing grip on consciousness.
I’m looking up at you. You’re staring down expectantly.
Your shattered marble brain explodes my sense of meaning,
my entropic tendency to quickly tire of everything.
We’re sitting on the porch. We’re watching cars. It’s 12 degrees.
Sometimes I wake up with a feeling I can’t name.
I swear I saw it somewhere deep in my sleep.
I read about it in an article online that said
“for answers, learn some symbology.”
You’re staring at me from across the room. I don’t know what you mean.
I feel both nervous and glee.
I’ve seen you everyday for years and still I’m mapping out
your one-way streets and intricacies.
Fine by me.
Stay with me,
permeating.
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3. |
Radically Normal Somehow
03:59
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I can’t believe that you can still buy things with checks.
I’m 25 and unable.
I let a Mormon interrogate my thoughts on death.
I spent two bucks on a razor.
But if my hand’s held high
for expedience,
and if I left the windows wide
for the sake of an atmosphere,
well, then if everything’s on the wire,
well, what does value mean?
And if you’re running back in the fire,
well, what was that supposed to be?
Eight years of doubt;
radically normal somehow.
I made some pasta and drank two beers last night.
I sweat and stared at the cable.
I dreamt of shopping carts and endless grey and white:
the last American fable.
But if my mouth hangs wide
for empty gestures,
or if I climb real high
to get a better look around,
well, then if everyone’s getting tired,
should we just call it?
And if you’re scared of what you’ve inspired,
I think, well, maybe there’s a lesson there somewhere.
Half-life half down;
radically normal somehow.
If you’re down, I’m down.
Radically normal somehow.
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4. |
Melissa
04:40
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Melissa,
I woke up feeling off today.
If death is dark and life is light,
well, my foggy body’s pale and white.
I’m thinning out in spectral ways.
Melissa,
I float an inch above this lake.
I kissed the water
and then felt weird about it.
I guess that’s just the bed I’ve made.
Oh,
my toes are cold.
Called my mother from a dying phone.
Sold my car for a dried-out shrub.
I’m not the guy I used to think I was.
Melissa,
I’m limpid eyed and feeble kneed.
I found an old lockbox,
got no idea what’s in there.
I’m sure it’s nothing that I’d need.
Well, sister,
I need a man; I need some space.
My calm devolved to apathy;
a drop of blood, ten miles of sea.
I beg and choose and take and take.
And, oh,
my legs won’t tan.
Called to tell you that there is no plan.
Sold my soul to a bored old man.
I’m not the guy I like to think I am.
Melissa,
I’m sleeping upright at your place.
I got out early. Now I’m
crumbling mulling what to do with
all these lines pressed in my face.
And Christ,
I’m losing weight.
Picked up a spam call just to hear my name.
Sold my blood at a mall upstate.
I’m just a loose and nervous pile of traits.
Melissa.
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5. |
Name the Home
02:25
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Name the house,
clean it out,
wonder what that entails.
Sand our bones,
bleached and prone.
I’ll try to love you every day.
Walk me there,
tall and scared,
desperate just to be
less callow than I seem.
Trying hard to say
exactly what I mean.
Or maybe I
should just keep quiet?
Well, I don’t care.
I’ll meet you there.
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6. |
Dress Rehearsal
04:19
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Flipping off a ghost on Market Street.
Anna climbs a tree, falls out a tree.
Who cares?
Not me.
Who’s there?
Somebody speak.
I’m just two holes cut in sheets.
Stop singing in tandem, Anna,
mouth wide open.
Fill me up with mean
through your teeth.
Stop splitting the atom into
every outstretched hand
held up to plead.
You’re not a dream.
Sticking tongues out for posterity.
Every open mouth a blank white sheet.
Dress rehearsal, touching teeth to teeth.
Anna stains the mirror as she cleans.
So what?
She’s not me.
Sewn shut
bag of feed.
I’m not a something you’d like to have been.
Stop tripping the sadness, Anna’s
self-effaced-fulfilling prophecy.
Counting black sheep.
Stop betting the average when the
sky’s filled in with pink and greyish green
through everything.
Stop hogging the mattress, Anna,
every Sunday morning here at 3
while your mom’s asleep.
Stop singing in tandem. Man, we’ve
never had a place we had to be.
Does that make us free?
Does that make us free?
Does that make us free?
Does that make us free?
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7. |
Neap Tide
02:17
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Keep the windows closed,
hands inside,
head on fire.
I don’t mind.
Name the home,
hold it close,
then let it go.
I don’t know.
That holy swell
deep inside
those sleepy eyes.
Close them tight.
Don’t say goodnight.
I’ll be fine.
Neap tide,
morning light.
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8. |
24
01:39
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I just turned 24.
I feel an over-under-nothing-whelming feeling like I’ve never felt before.
I’m sitting on the porch.
I’m watching nothing pass.
I feel just like the holes inside a screen door.
My cat, she loves me right,
just like I love myself.
My cat, she loves me when she needs me, then no more.
I just turned 24,
or was it 22?:
too young to be someone,
too old for that excuse.
I just turned 24,
or was it 25?:
not quite a person yet,
still closer now to dying.
My dog, he loves me right,
thinks one thing at a time,
so when I call his name I’m all that’s on his mind.
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9. |
Dry Heat
06:38
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Wednesday, sort of passing out,
watching shit TV on our couch.
Alex, why’d you go to sleep two hours ago?
I’m sweating. It’s not hot.
Alex, I have nothing left to shout.
My hands are in the sink. I’m scrubbing everything. I’m wrinkling from the spout.
We are inside. We are out.
Our noses touch together on the mirror we erected on our snouts.
And if you want to speak in anger,
speak in anger.
Today’s a cabin. I’m a house.
I ripped my shoe. Of course, it rained last night. My sock was sticking out.
I’m always talking Alex down.
Walking barefoot, all the dust I made returns to me somehow.
I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know I don’t know I don’t know I know I know.
Alex, grab a beer. Put me to bed.
Remember when we built that fort? An iron fell and cracked you in the head.
Today I woke seeing that red.
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10. |
Fake Cherry Taste
03:14
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Remediate.
Aging for nothing.
All my stupid songs were only epigraphs for stillness and change,
all my stupid metaphors just cards tossed on a crumbling estate.
Well-planned routines.
Logical things.
Bodies without skeletons and skeletons without any skin;
listening from the kitchen as you quietly let yourself back in.
Idols in space,
sacred and late.
Nothing’s ever promised, yeah, but nothing’s ever once stayed the same.
Close your eyes and listen to the puzzle pieces hiding away.
Fake cherry taste.
Purple and grape.
Silence in the living room in every great American state.
Adjusting on the fly to every thoughtful word a stranger conveys.
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11. |
passenger side door
06:55
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Eddie’s driving with his knees again,
while, me, I’m falling out the passenger side door.
This year I’m feeling incomplete again.
I feel it hold me.
Hold me.
I woke up drowning in the crease again.
Eddie’s making eggs. It’s half past nine. There’s
something so still. I just can’t pick it out.
I feel it hold me.
Hold me.
I’m shaken water filling glasses, spilling on the couch.
I’m all the light inside this room. You could just turn me out.
I’m walking everywhere, forgetting every place I’ve been.
I’m broken sockets, spackled walls inside my mother’s home.
I’m empty jars, those secret songs you’ll never show no one. I’m
afraid I’m just the taste of iron lingering in your mouth.
I bummed a cigarette from Leigh again.
Can’t tell the difference between breath and smoke.
Eddie says to me, “I didn’t know,
but I can hold you.
Hold you.
Hold you.
Hold you.
You’re painted pictures, stupid riddles, dresses on the line.
You’re jumping in the pool and telling me the water’s fine.
You’re smoking early right before your dad gets up for work.
You’re harmless spiderwebs, you’re entropy, you’re second home.
You’re broken everything so everything feels whole.
You are the line we draw from where we are to where we’re from.”
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Moon News Bloomington, Indiana
Moon News is Liam Kingsley, a New York–born musician who currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana.
Moon News recommends:
how many whales there are in this world
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Pete's Guide to Preparing Eulogies
by Pete Something
boys, noise, and joys
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