PITH - segment #6 - quaranzine

pith noun \ ˈpith \ Definition of

PITH

1a : a usually continuous central strand of spongy tissue in the stems of most vascular plants that prob. functions chiefly in storage b : any of various loose spongy plant tissues that resemble true pith c : the soft or spongy interior of a part of the body 2a : the essential part : CORE b : substantial quality (as of meaning)

hyper-objects delilah’s unwrapping lindortruffles the plastic squeaking lifetimes uncountable in an oil-cloud we watched a video on what it’s like to float inside a spherical mirror and live in a virus fugue i sucked a sugar-free fruit mix lemon like airport sherbets and footwell sandwiches delilah’s watching my bonsai-guilt panging violet as I meld with my screen

Empty rooms We make rooms inside our heads, for the people that we know, dreaming shows us which are empty.

I can’t leave the room I’m in right now, staring at same surfaces, the same six rectangles. until I close my eyes, and Fall.

Fall into an open space, Full of colours, clashing tones and misplaced objects.

You walk in and fill a vacant slot, contrasts make more sense, as you connect the space.

Silhouette backlit with strings of light, sparking at the fingertips, saturation too high to illustrate a face.

I fall back again, into to the same six rectangles, more aware of the empty space.

orange insomnia

my head is full of orange juice tears and marmalade desires dripping / slowly until my pillow is sticky with sweet citrus guilt and my body is nothing but segmented flesh and my stomach is a keyboard and i am writing these orange scented secrets over and over and over

PANIC Panic is raising your hand in fear every 10 seconds To face a small screen and the brightness reflecting the eyes Only to be faced with more and more hawkish headlines Telling us mass meetings will begin to murder us Panic is shakingly scrubbing the hands, trying to wash away the worries But like the germs that are front and centre of our lives right now The worries return again and again and again and again and again When it wipes out, the lack of trepidation is only temporary Panic is the race against time to the reach first place to the market Only to find yourself placed behind selfish over - stockers Scrambling to the find the last of the alcohol filled sanitizers Surrounded by the empty shelves, devoid of our essentials Panicking is only natural It's what we all face and fight against The sensationalist media is becoming more mediocre right before us Stay Safe

this window this window shows me stories. like scout or trusty messenger Eye survey the scene, study the street acquaint myself with all the paint on pavements, the many feet and faces taking places the length of hugs apart. a kid coughs up the air she swallowed running down the hillMum pivots, the whole road shivers, Shutters twitch. ...

Shimmering greens prey on dusty windows.

I lend my deepest blues to this sparkling Spring blossom, swelled with memories of old birthdays and five-pub Fridays I proffer my pithy pint of purple to this upside-down sea, smile as the sky erupts in endless indigo.

I grow wings, just for a laugh. ...

On strolls, ladies lick essential lollies this window shows me secrets.

Deconstruction Every student knows what its like to unpack a flat, a room you spent 10 months putting together. Maybe some don’t, but those with a budget do. It’s a funny thing, moving every year, a new place for two semesters, then out again. Student décor is never going to be a feature on architectural digest, that much is clear.

The street signs, random posters lifted from indie clubs, wristbands for all your niche concerts, photos of young kids and dogs that have been dead for years, all back into the plastic boxes, back into your dad’s car, back into your garage. Fairy lights so delicately strung get wrapped up in a ball, a future problem of entanglement. Signs with live laugh love energy slung into another box, mixing with books you spent money on but definitely did not read. Ornaments of no significant value, but were cheap and pretty, lay at the bottom of the pile, discarded for another few months. Your patterned flares and extra wide leg jeans hidden amongst t-shirts and Joni jeans, because of course your eccentric city style cannot come home with you to the small town. Piece by piece, the room becomes a blank canvas again, except for the little pin holes which you pray the landlord doesn’t notice. They were there before, sure. Ten you start to realise how impersonal it really was. A wall hanging and a duvet cover doesn’t make a house a home, that much is clear now. The deep clean will upturn some labels and a few hairbands, maybe a 5p, once scooped up, the floor is not yours to walk on anymore. The fake sheepskin rug rolled up, leaving the cheap carpet to look even cheaper once again. Beds turned to face their original position, one unlived in, because the way it was presented was uncomfortable on the neck. Hopefully the next tenant will work that out. Batteries back into the smoke alarm, because you ticked non smoker on the form, while your parents find filters under the sofas, rubbing their heads.

Its tiring. Not only because you live on the third floor. But because you have to move on again. Sure, you wont have to put up with the squeaky doors or the broken bathroom window anymore, but you wont get to look out on the curved street anymore, or be bathed in light while sitting on your semi comfortable window seat. Losing the comforting things in this strange city, year upon year, is tiring.

But it will change. And you’ll find other comforts, maybe a bigger room, a kitchen with a window, or even a first floor flat. Better parking. Nicer neighbours. A better corner shop. What you must remember about deconstruction, is that it will always be followed by construction. It will come again, and there will be another home, even if its semi permanent. It can be yours for those months, and you can do your best to love each inch of it. And each string of fairy lights you take down and put up and take down, take that home with them. While the ornaments seem resolute, and cliché, they're the ones that have lived and will live with you again.

You must remember that you will always make your own home.

these days, I only have coherent thoughts when i’m walking my dog it’s weird walking around these streets again they’re like a labyrinth all the houses look the same except i don’t know where the dead ends are anymore i swear they changed while we were gone at least i’m not scared to walk alone at night anymore so maybe this isn’t all bad it feels like a ghost town but maybe that’s fitting maybe i can pretend this is spirited away friendly phantoms fly away from me across the street i think i’d feel less alone if they weren’t here at all anyway i can only walk so far until I get scared of the police so i’d better go home soon i feel like i’m sixteen again wandering around aimless and doing fuck all but doing nothing is always more fun with friends it felt good to walk past your house and know we could be at least kind of close together again even if we weren’t pished this time i could’ve sworn that wall we hung about on didn’t have a fence before and that post-box was actually a bin but how should i know i guess i don’t look at those things closely anymore

if i had known the last time we would hang out would’ve been that night at polo maybe i would’ve bought another round of drinks and went to the smoking room less often maybe i would’ve bought more cigarettes if i had known i’d have half a pack to last me forever if only i had known about the apocalypse then i wouldn’t have to be rationing my menthols like those fancy treats my mum only gives the dog once a day at least i remembered where i kept my old cigarettes from 2017 maybe back then i had a premonition i always thought i was psychic maybe now i’ll have the time to finally reach my potential as a forest witch maybe now i’ll have time to do something productive and meaningful in this world i’ll get started when i stop sleeping in ‘til two it sucks i have to smoke in my room these days but at least i know the neighbours can’t grass me in who would’ve known that my last kiss before all of this my last kiss would’ve been with that girl at the bar i took my last smoke break with if anything i’m glad i didn’t really mean it when i asked if she’d like to see me again sometime

pollinated fruits still grow timothée chalamet was in my dream last night I think it’s a sign but I don’t know what for

dusk i feel the deep wood of my body let the light stroke me gently while i hold myself together spending the day hiding from the sun son why do you cry it feels so inescapable now the hope of something better the body is changed as it grows knowing only in the looking back in the reflection of a mirror the pool of water now how change reflects the specks of dust f loating across the room

quarantine in April Joy in a table Chairs Being together Sweetness and some of that

They say home is where the heart is, but I don’t know where that is either.

It lies somewhere in-between my childhood bedroom full of star stickers on the ceiling and pink fluffy carpets, and my sterile tenement in uni, full of cold fairy lights and cheap blankets. Torn between the quiet country life surrounded by family, tourists and secrets, or sitting in the library, watching other students tense in frustration and muffle coughs behind their sports jumper sleeve. That’s what they don’t tell you when you’re at open days, that your life will be fragmented for the next four years, that it isn’t as simple as moving to the city and staying. It will be a new flat every year for four years, just when you start to get comfortable, your summer budget says no more flat. Out in June, back in September. It will be two days at home every few weeks, and just as you start to love your bed again, the bus pulls up. It will be learning how to cook more than one or two meals, doing washing, hoovering every room you have, and then coming home for summer and losing the routine you have created for yourself. It will be no home for four years. How can it be, if the bed you sleep in isn’t yours, and the stairs you hold onto aren’t yours, and the bath you lay in isn’t yours, and the walls you want to paint bright yellow are always going to be white.

Home is not so much as where the heart is, because the heart is everywhere.

The heart is in the lady who gave you your oat latte and smiled back. The heart is in the fuzzy blanket that can exist in either of your homes. The heart is in the cringey reality show you secretly love that can be watched both in the library or on your mums sofa. I’m not exactly sure where home is either. I only know what its not. But, I think you’ll know when you get there. That’s all I can hope for.

death to all skillfully developed social charm death to dressing for the season the eiffel tower has no idea what paris fashion week is but she understands a slow dance rose tinted shards emotional waves that revolve around the moon i logged in to find myself filed away in a plot of pixels i thank god you’re not a musician i thank you for believing me when i say i play beautifully true angles have wings not pockets i have a mask in my pocket in my open tab pocket, my alternate reality i can clearly see now what was a waste of money longing for a long crowded hallway a dangerous encounter what is this opium feeling? sulking magpies careless magpies me: a sleeper the floor: a pierced prairie of my greed i am happy when my pores are black i’ll be a flying flute when my pores fill up again i resent them for making me use a hard drive i prefer carving things into the bottom my desk if i could find an open field to burn the wood would my life be deleted forever? my body has gone digital my outfits are made of pixels is a screenshot your touch? my virtues are virtual my mother is at home in america polishing bullets the same old light shines through her i couldn’t dodge her lightning bullets dulling the pearl in my head salt crystallizing in my lungs not to be dissolved on your tongue…yet i beg for a ray to penetrate my beloved blonde streaks in a breeze this wish is carried oh! the prospect of a dip! i am no longer shiversome drowning wouldn’t be as lonely an endeavour as my rocky life on land within the caves an echo has never been resolved an echo that was born with bigger plans wanting to be discovered before any sort of actualization void of any feeling of worthiness destined to fall for a greater lesson desiring affirmation or artistic right

what does it really mean to take matters into your own hands? i do want your pity because i think i am pitiful frown lines aren’t beautiful i thought silence called for stillness i am unlimited there is no need to conserve i know days have passed because the flowers are dead my plastic flowers help the days merge into one long nightmare i find comfort in horror, it’s common, like a bondage fetish or a cold beer in the winter i was told patience was the first word i learned i don’t want to live like a wave with the task of rubbing glass into sand i am selfish like my strongest muscle i cast a highly flammable ray i hold pillows with pride i lay curled like the ends of a broken chain i could sell myself for double what it cost me to weld this body where are my production notes? how shall i stand? please, let me read someone else’s lines let me unlock the community wardrobe i used to think if i was only a little harder on my body it would tighten up i cared for you i cared for you and you didn’t even know it! i’ve been asleep in the same silhouette for a decade it is only recently that i started contorting from the strong presence of rays enveloped in a weak little window pane i need to work i need to love my silk is depressed and i know that because i pay attention to all things that shimmer i gifted my succulent with glass beads and it came back to life i will still be attending the funeral no one will listen to my suburban elegy because my idol is a rich kid you’re kicking concrete look at yourself! my eyes are itching from pollen snow look at my pink eyes notice them because it hurts me think of them as sperm fertilizing my fertile pain i am far too malnourished for another morning they said water was supposed to be enough i thought water was going to be enough i am approaching what appears to be a beautiful woman it is just a man