The Clears

Feeling: Flat.

Not know what to do with self, just walking, sometimes feel flicker of want, smooth glide of desire, but can’t seem to grasp it, just slithers away.

Then: Caught.

Disgusting, oily place, somewhere never seen before, or not stuck in eyes anyway.  But faces in window pull: masks: featureless: perfect.

Hot Spike.

Faded quickly, but something stayed, growing quietly.  Just been looking in wrong place was all.

Like some kind of flashback. The acid kind, not the movie kind. “It puts the lotion on its skin”. “Please Place the item in the bag” It places the item in the basket. Where does the phrase Basket Case come from? Thank you for shopping at Somerfield. They programme us to come back. We are such easy targets. It puts the lotion in the basket. The machines give the instructions and we are grateful for being told what to do next. The less we have to think while shopping the easier it is. Thank you for shopping at Tesco. Now where have they moved the beans to? Lists. take one with you shopping and you’ll buy less. write one every day and you’ll get more done. Item one: It puts the lotion on its shins. Item two: It puts the lotion on the list. How many more blades can they fit on a razor? Surely all you really need is one good clean blade. There’s one on the back of some too now to offer the precision lost to the five on the front. It cuts the nose from its face and puts it in the basket, then its ears, then the lips, then all of the other organs one by one, emptying itself out to be discarded, sold, distributed, redistributed, diced, measured, analysed… what does metriculation mean? Is it even a real word? What really makes a word ‘real’? Proceed to checkout. Sorry, your browser does not recognise that script. It clicks the add to basket button. It clicks the go to checkout button. It clicks. It moves across the web clicking like a spider. clumsy. that’s a rubbish clumsy simile. I really can’t write. i want to get it out. how to get the slippy jumpy schizo linking out of me to there. there comes the stop. the stop. making things try to make sense doesn’t matter no one there who cares let it go to hell out in back stop[ too much stopping making doing trying stop. stop. too many rules about how things go here. other people do go things. i do not. i try. i will not repeat not give up. fuck it. yes i will. i’ll give up. i’ll try again. i’ll give up again. i’ll stop. i’ll start the ground is littered with iron the details are important and not important and there will be no drama. nothing. stop. there are no words here that i have that are adequate. every establishment of anything is a stop. what happens when things arte not blocked? It puts the parrot on its shoulder. The stone goes in its mouth. The blade cuts in and the hairs prickle. It moves around the canvas, stalking it like a beast that wants to maim it and sticks paint there as if to mean something other than the battle. It eats chocolate and drinks coffee and gets high on the obsession of meeting the idea with its whole bodymindnervescutsstopsstutters a. a. stop. stupid stupid people. everything touches everything here. you are connected to it but you try to stop it. stop it. It enters its details a nd c licks payn ow. 404. page not found. Please place the item in the bag. If you have coins, place them in the coin receptor before putting notes in the note receptor. It puts the lotion on its shiny surface. Then cuts in to it.

Wanting… Desire… It’s all slipped away… just a smooth, blank surface in my mind where it used to be…

So smooth…

So blank…

1. When I came to, I was itchy and an man with an Eastern European accent was handing me some metal disks. I told him I didn’t want them and left the building.
2. Things coming back to me in fragments, which was disorientating at first.
3. I was surprised to recognise myself in the reflection of a window. That’s strange isn’t it?
4. The eye clamps.
5. A period of insistent questioning; “Why do you want it?”, “This particular one?”
6. Laughing; lots of.
7. Crying; lots of.
8. A sense of panic and fear.
9. A sense of relief.
10. Clarity.
11. Empty space.
12. Coming to.
13. Here. Now.