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War(w)hol(e): sleeping in a storm

She says there’s a tornado watch, and I shrug it off as I turn another page to my book. I just want to be reminded of what used to be real for a while before I join her to bed. I have 90 minutes before the dreams take me back for what I owe them. In the meantime, I’m with Ultra and Andy. I’m back in a place where the shitty instant movies meant something, not because they inherently meant something, but because a soup can was empty enough for the public to carry. Carry it they would, with enough means to make Ultra regret her own full stomach. The cans she had Andy sign could’ve funded her retirement, but the Factory was hungry. I’ve yet to create my food art that gets people interested in my shit movies. The wind starts growling against the windows in a way I haven’t heard in the decade I’ve lived here. The rain sounds sideways. I wake her from the bathroom as the wind has caught me on a break, and the living room is more window than wall. We’ve taken to sleeping on an air mattress in the living room floor by the windows. It was lovely under the tree in December, but now there’s no hiding why. It feels too real for a moment. I ask her to double check the radar. She says it’s fine, and she goes back to sleep. She already has me put on rain sounds with another apartment view on the TV nightly, though I don’t think either of us would have heard a difference had I turned it off now. Andy believed we would prefer the simulation. I‘m afraid he may be right. I’m afraid because I can’t control the one with a remote. Yes, that’s usually true, but for the moment I’m more afraid of the one outside my actual window that has no remote. Pontificating about simulacra or not, I’m afraid. As the storm starts to calm, the red light hitting my blinds from the LEDs is flashing. A fire truck is outside my window. Are these red lights more real, more meaningful? Do they make my fear more meaningful? The fire truck leaves (me). My 90 minutes have become 3 hours. My debt is greater. I can’t hide, and I’m afraid. It’s time to pay. I’ll simulate another violent death, wake up, and feel a little less convinced I’m about to be killed again since we’re in the living room. The lights help me see less of what isn’t there. I can see the front door bar intact with my own eyes. I’m safe enough to die in my sleep again. Good morning.

@spasi

Feb 16, 2025

1

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date idea

The sharp scent of rain tumbles clumsily in as you tease window-hinges wider with the pads of your fingers. A siren trails close behind, uninvited, sears your eardrums, dies off down the block. Your neighbors are arguing again. Laundry, loans, lack of commitment… like yesterday, like the day before. You think it would be suffocating to wrap yourself up in someone else’s sheets.  It’s five o’clock. Leaning against the sill and flicking the radio dial with one recently manicured nail, you tune into the local news. Roaring wall of static, then calm conversation between two anchors bubbling up through an old set of Panasonic loudspeakers. You are feeling incomplete today, like yesterday, like the day before. Rigatoni boils in the kitchen. You check the leftmost cabinet and find strawberry jam, unopened. You check the cupboard and look over a tub of tahini, a collection of canned soup, and a stack of pie tins. You check the counter, behind the cutlery. Finally, you check the fridge, ducking down to see only your own brown-eyed reflection in one last — now empty — jar of Prego. Your shoulders dip. You slip on white sneakers, not-so-white-as-they-once-were. Why did you try to paint the front door? It is peeling now, ugly like a fledgling losing young feathers. Flecks of buttery yellow dapple paisley carpeting. The great outdoors wait for you at the bottom of a cramped stairwell with twin light fixtures, both broken. A sky like an old sweater is draped above Brooklyn, ready to wring itself out again at any moment. Once around the block, rubber soles brushing damp cement, you walk briskly. At first you fling yourself against the humidity, then become self-conscious and adopt a slower pace as you near the corner store. Two dollars, sixty cents. Like last week, like the week before.  You and I, we are looking down at our phones and stumble into each other, halfway home. It is no one’s fault. You recognize me from somewhere, you say, and feel like a bad person for lying. You have never seen me before in your life. I ask for your number. That night you eat too quickly, knowing you’ll wish you’d saved some leftovers. I come over once, then again. We go out for dinner at tacky restaurants, where art deco posters from the nineteen-thirties have pinned themselves up in scattered flocks across worn-out drywall and the menu is printed with strange font on laminated placemats. The appetizer sample photos are unnerving; the bruschetta cowers like a scared animal awash in excessive camera flash. I make a joke about it, and you laugh. We order dishes to share. The food is always better than I expected, but not quite as good as you wanted it to be. You don’t mind. We talk for hours. We agree, ballpoint pens are better. I hold you, and the ten p.m. bus pulls you out of my arms and through the dusky streets, past crowds and utility poles. I hold you, and we rhyme our steps. Burgundy is around us in the leaves and in the dirt. You wear a coat I gave you. I hold you, and we swat flies out on your porch. The days are getting shorter. I hold you, and we watch blu-ray CDs you found on sale. Soft light from the flatscreen plays across your face as you fall asleep. I keep the movie on a little longer. I hold you. In December, we bring a blanket to Long Island and listen to the sound of snow falling on the dunes. You call in sick for work too often. I hold you, and you know my callouses well. We share the same sheets; we are wrapped up in each other. I hold you, and kiss your hair. You smell like candied oranges. The afternoons eat away at one another. Dishes pile like uneven layer-cakes in your kitchen sink, crested with suds. You say you feel uninspired. Now we argue about laundry, and the sounds of your unhappy apartment are heard through half-open windows.  You shout, eyebrows furrowed like the pages of a book. A white plate soars from the grip of a trembling hand, misses an upturned chin, and interrupts us with its shattering. This time, it’s different. Sleep escapes us ‘til the sun is already planted on the easternmost rooftop. I hurt you the way I learned to, and stay awhile, but don’t know why I stay. We sink into sweet, heavy things: the saxophone in “Charcoal Baby”, shared creamsicles on hot Saturday evenings. I see you less and less, and remember less and less of you. Will I see you next week? Yes, if you text me. You forget, just like we’d both hoped.

@ad

Sep 17, 2024

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brief nighttime reflection

I’ve spent the whole morning looking for a lost key that would open all the doors. It was like waking up small cuts in the throat, like searching for the past and remembering the pain. Another thing crossed off the list, but was it worth coming back home? Will it help to bang your head against the doors? What we do is shameful, it’s shameful to neglect what we have around Walking back home, I unplugged myself and looked up at the sky. It was 8:34 PM and there were a few stars. I realized the trap - dispersion. I don’t know how long it’s been since I last looked up at the sky - usually, we gaze blankly down, the deepest point of a screen.

@alikelylad

Jan 29, 2025

Top Recs from @selectmorsels

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some recs

1. company lot by noel miller (kinda like doomscrolling through the tech world but in a funny way. would not play around your parents or coworkers lol) 2. tiny meat gang (used to be with two cohosts, but one is a creep so he's off and it's noel miller hosting interviews, news guy bits, etc. pretty versatile ever since cody ko left. the older episodes with cody are funny too, but i personally don't want to watch them anymore. also would not play around your parents or coworkers) 3. beersos (two hs best friends talk about unhinged shit every episode. also also would not play around anyone tbh) 4. welcome to nightvale (it's a radio show for a fictional town called nightvale. has some fire lines. is overall kooky and odd. often eerie) anyway, here's a screengrab from the first few seconds of the first episode of company lot

@selectmorsels

Oct 1, 2024

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midnight

i don't want to be lonely it's not midnight anymore it hits when i'm high over the ocean one eye open the other lost to the black depths nights like these, it feels like i'll never wake up won't be returning to the shore everything i want refuses to come within six metres of me even when neither of us are real

@selectmorsels

Sep 30, 2024

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in another world, i am good

i am good. i am good. i whisper it on the way home through the snow. i mumble it on the edge of the bed, pupils heavy in my hands. in another world, you love me and i am good. i am good. come back to me. mother who remembers you. i hold you when you sleep, mould my arms around you, leave no room for the cold. your skin is like wax paper. there are tears at the edges of your eyes. i am good. i am good. mother who loves you. you are good to me. i hold my eyes in my hands, and run them over the edges of your face. even without me, they recognize your temples. you are good to me. you come to me in the dark. gentle as ever, speak no words. there are tears in your eyes and bleeding in your hands and i love you, i love you, i love. come back to me. in my dream, you don't answer. you don't tell me what you've done.

@selectmorsels

Sep 30, 2024