"To make you laugh," that is what I want, I think, in answer to the question, "Then what do you want?" and what comes out instead is, "Oh, nothing, you know me." It is always such a short pause between that moment when you coyly feign indifference and when your hopes are shattered by the other person saying exactly what it is they think you want them to say.
But, but, I thought...
Don't worry. It doesn't really matter.
The audacity of a species with a life span of some 70 years eternally harping about happily ever after is what I love about people. 'Always,' he says, and she answers, 'Forever.' (INFINITY + INFINITY = FTW) And it is bought, swallowed and marketed en masse. There are individuals who have made their entire livings painting portraits of actors portraying fictional characters from books representing eternal love for posters hung in Eastern European alleyways advertising films produced a half a world away in a country where the divorce rate would result in a pre-school phonics grade of High Potential for Improvement.
Older women are so wise in their understanding. You can almost feel the strings, you are tempted to yell, 'Easy on the elbows! I'm a real boy!' Their laughter is like a bellows, stoking a coal fueled fire. She laughs, like the melted ice challenging the nerve of these temperate winters.
On the 23rd floor, you realize that everyone is naked on their balconies at this height, because why wouldn't they be? We are all doing this together.
It is all changing, all of this, changing how we used to feel normal. We try to see what's behind the glass in the aquarium, but are blocked by a group of people, each taking picture upon picture, not actually seeing what they've paid to see, but photographing it, taking these memories with them to look at in the confines of their homes. Snap, snap, snap. I wonder, will they put photo albums together, dozens upon dozens of blurry jellyfish pictures? Or will they get home and after deleting 78 jellyfish photos think, "I don't even remember seeing any jellyfish"? Oh, I get it.
I'm on the inside looking out.
11 comments:
I knew those were jellyfish, but I was secretly hoping that they were breast implants. Because I imagine you would remember taking 78 pictures of breast implants.
the fact that i never realized how similar implants look to jellyfish means i am not trying hard enough. agh!
Excuse me while I moan in pleasure reading those words you string together so nicely.
I'm so disappointed that you're using coal-fueled fires instead of solar heat. Hello? We're environmentalist hippies out here, remember?
mouse, i do my best work strung out.
e, coal is the new black, you know. besides, solar panels don't work so hot when covered in moss. invent me a rain panel, and we'll talk.
I invent you a nice, rain fueled, fully renewable non-dirty hydroelectric dam and you bitch about the fishes.
Next thing you know some endangered sky-salmon is gonna complain about all the solar panels soaking up all the sunshine messing with its spawning habitat.
sunshine + spawning = brood lighting?
I feel big because I didn't photograph the jellyfish.
Also, the octopus looks like a big scrotum.
Also, despite all the highlights, I think I most like that big mother tank near the entrance filled with Georgia Straight fish.
Also, you write good.
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