Vast Differences Between Fingernails And Toenails

There are vast differences between my fingernails and toe nails, and I feel that it boils down much more to exposure than biology. I have small feet, that are broader than usual, with toes that look like people cueing at an airport in summer. There is a large man at the counter (the big toe) and he is sweating through his business suit, and it's making the tall, occasional tennis player behind him uncomfortable. That is why there is a gap between them. Third and fourth in line are a couple- two lesbians about to go on holiday. One jutts her head out of line, ponytail swinging to assess the hold up (the fourth toe). At the back, resting on this nosey woman for support, (a prearranged agreement, don't you worry) is a leathery old woman.  

My feet spend most days seeing the same pictures in my shoes, house, garden and shower. So they reinvented themselves. My fingernails have got it pretty good.

Stakeout

It seems after, all this time, I have forgotten to write about them. The two that sit in the car outside the LPG vault, that shudders and creaks when gas needs to be syphoned through big pipes into hungry motor-vehicles. They sit in their gold car. Gold that is faded, but not as if of former glory, but as if a cheap spectacle that has rubbed off quickly and leaves residue on your thumb. They sit in their car, and do not speak. A man, and a woman. One Caucasian male, with short greying hair, perfect teeth, with smallish features. One Asian woman, little English, probably 50, probably lonely, no rings, no jewellery, says that the guy in the car is "her friend". Both short. Both spectacled. Both slow speaking, but only ever enter the shop alone. No sudden movements. Everything is like slow breathing to them.

[Not quiet breathing though. That was a long time ago. That was someone else. We don't talk about those breaths. They make my heart heavy, and my body finds no way to replicate that solace in adulthood.]

When they sit out the front of the gas tank, I lock my console door, and turn the automatic doors to exit only. I try and look for knives, or guns, or lipstick marks on cheeks. Anything with motive. Anything for hints. They sit there, and they do not speak, and they watch me through the window. As if a stakeout, where the suspect knows he's being monitored but cannot move in case of possible arrest or incarceration. My boss says "People like those are the ones that abduct people in America. You know, real weirdos. We don't get lots o' that 'round here." He asked them to leave once, and not come back. Said we'd call the police if they did. They disappeared for a while, but now they're back. Smoking. Eating icecream. Bottles and bottles of water. Not speaking.

Duckeye Draws Blood

I'm pretty sure

I just put my hand in blood

on the bottom of the soap dispenser 

at the Gladstone Hotel.

The feedback filling the building,

piercing the usually muffling quality of bathroom retreats.

A bunch of men

on a shitty stage out there

are screaming about ballsacks.

I really need more soap.

Emotive Memory

Most musicians have an extended metaphor that they continue to fall back on that runs as a link and works as a humanizer between their albums. Conor Oberst has his Yellow Bird, and Lorde has her thrones. Jamie T doesn't have a single song without the word trouble, or at least one of its many synonyms. I am trying to place my metaphor so that I have something to fall back on. Two years ago, I would have said that it would be to do with the action of swallowing: a stifling of swells of emotion, or a method for the ease of absorbing information. In my head I dream of houses. But they are never mine. I write of roots to ground me. But the ground is not mine. Nor is all that I touch, or see. Perhaps I lack the possessive nature that comes with music. I like to observe, as if a writer taking note to preserve emotive memory. Emotive memory finds its life in many funny and distinctive ways. My eyes are attempting to shut as I type this. I will draw on some emotive memory of today: The heat that was making me pace, and want to melt at the same time. Trees that smell like sperm during Spring. We Have Always Lived In The Castle. French Onion Soup/Sour Cream/Cracked Pepper Watercrackers. $4.95 and the change I had in my pocket. "Please, pay me tomorrow. Please. Please." Paddling pools next to the bowling club. Note. Wine, Noodles, and Vampire Sex. Oliver growing up to quickly, and they don't even know me. They don't even know me.

Teeth are bared to assert authority, but also, to guard the tongue and the throat. I am angry because I need to shake this out of me. Shake everything out. Even if it's not the reason I am angry. Phones break. Sometimes I just need to be reminded of fragility.