Issue 10.1 Fall 2014

issue 10.1 cover image

 

 

Um

 

Kyle Klendworth

 

 

I

 

There’s

 

um

 

there are water droplets on my windshield

 

and and I’m driving along, peering through them

 

deciding whether or not to use m-my wipers
because they’ve gotten old and torn
and I’m afraid if I use them
they’ll disintegrate

 

but past the little bulmy specks and particles
run crossways and sideways and these
stupid human concrete pathways
don’t ever and won’t ever transcend the

 

the
destin
ation
motiv
ation
or
precipit
ation

 

I've got sort of a sorry obsession with
transgression a fit of insanity sired
by vanity or the unrelenting thirst of
the river well, well, well enough
Sink.

 

Faucet. Gauge, gush, gums. Paste. Crust. Brush, blush.

 

I've got a nostril closed and my face a razor-
width away from blowing out what's clogging
Me up and an Amex away from a line of
Credit that would annex my
vanity that is cracked and antique
my energy level is
sky high and
relative.

 

My sister asked me if
I had any idea what I was doing
Out of context, sure
But within it, I had a grasp,

 

with my tiny, pulsing hands.

 

Holding onto her
groceries when I knew she didn't love me anymore. We strolled out under the pale white light that gets cast from industrialized parking lot lights. She blew cold out of her nose, and shot a look at me. I was just trying

 

II

 

HELP. THIS REFLECTION THAT FACES
MY FACE IS FACING THE SAME DILEMMA
AS I AM EYEING, FACED WITH A MOUNTAIN OF
WHITE
GUILT
PRIVILEGE
MONEY
WEALTH
AND THAT DOESN'T STOP ME FROM FEEDING
MY AUTO-FUCKING-MATIC SYSTEM
OF OPPRESSION AND INHALING
THIS THIN LINE THAT I TREAD ON AND TEAR
THIN.

 

Spires and spires within
An ivory tower.
Secret and safe
Recoiled and spoiled
libraryesque or elabaroatory

 

Um

 

the blue gaze glazes my glassy glassed eyeballs and reflects  
what i think i want to be reflected into and out of my soul and
my heart races
like some sort of stopwatch that
never stops
i wish i
could even the
odds
to promote the likelihood that id do relevant favors and gain favor with my favor
ite
acolytes
or whoever it is i sould my sol to
or to whomever i am speaking
to whoever i am
or to whomever it is listening
they say im a fool
looking to make a profit with
whatever synaptic impulses i am
or whatever my brain really inputs into the real world
who i am and what i see or whatever
its
its just so easy to fall asleep
and ignore the buzzing beating of the alarm clock
fool me once
luna you
fool me twice
luna me
fool me

 

III

 

Time’s this really tricky thing, at least for us humans,
it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and
even
tually it just stops.

 

Transcending what I’m spraying
saying
praying
spitting
past all of you to try to make it connect
to every human soul in the entire
infinitum of mankind
or people -- look I think I’m a people now.
I SOLD MY SOUL TO THE DEVIL TO MAKE 40,000
I SOLD MY SOUL TO MAKE ENDS MEET AND TO HAPPILY GREET
TIED MEN IN SUITS AND SLICKED BACK HAIR
AND WOMEN WHO SPIT AT MY NAME
BECAUSE MY ‘HAIR IS TOO LONG’
OR ‘MY GLASSES ARE SMUDGED’
OR BECAUSE I AM ONE OF THOSE
HIPPY
DIPPY
WORDSMITHS
Just beyond this ragged dragged line of
self deprecation and sleep deprivation
LIES WHO I REALLY AM
and maybe I can wake up and show you all
every last one human
two humans
three humans

 

IV

 

You. You right there.

 

Have you ever just felt alive? So ubiquitously human, just ecstatic to be alive?

 

It’s some sort of word that is really hard to say -- I want to say there isn’t a word IV it.

 

It’s the world melting around you -- a deep dark pool of chocolate. And you’re in it and it it it it is wonderful and your mouth is open and you’re eating all of it. It’s so carefree and joyous that time seems to slip away and everything that used to matter doesn’t anymore.

 

She does that to me.

 

She’s the orange, drab light of a parking deck
she’s the snowflakes that dance, and linger, well into May
she’s the unconditional bearer of my wit, my guilt, and my

pleasure,
she’s the feeling you get after you orgasm, and realize that you’re not the only person who got off and she’s what makes my heart rush beat

 

Pound

 

when she says she's close 8 minutes ago, 3 minutes from now and she’s the one,
the person who calms me, and I reciprocate,
she’s the one cloud that smears across the entire sky and takes twenty-one different shapes sizes and objects all throughout one lazy afternoon

 

but, um

 

um
um

 

Don’t

 

Don’t look back for her

 

then you’ll see she isn’t really there,
doesn’t exist,
isn’t real,
is a figment of my imagination,
a dream,
just like that vat of chocolate fondu.

 

She makes me glad that I am here,
that I am working towards being the human society wants me to be,
glad that I didn’t do lines of blow in the bathroom of Jimmy’s
glad that I didn’t waste my
freshman
sophomore
junior
senior
senior
senior
senior
year sleeping
sleeping in class
sleeping around

 

I’m glad:

 

1st: I’m here
2:nd I think and wait and analyze and fear
3rd: I sold out and will continue to pour out every microscopic spec of creative juice and not one drop will go to waste
4: th: that th-there’s a we -- and that half of it is she and that she is here and im awake and that makes me feel whole and cliche and like i’m in

 

fifth

 

grade

 

numbers mean a lot to me, if you haven’t noticed yet
i obsess over counting,
12345
but it’s gonna stop

 

everything stops

 

tick

 

tick

 

tock.

 

 

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