sand sand sand sand sand sand i think my mind is disintegrating i might kill myself it probably began before i was born in the beginning there was nothing and the world was perfect then i came into the world and read lots of articles at university because i wanted a good grade but the world began to fuzz at its edges i’d drift back to the flat and stare at all the objects in my room unable to understand them most of the time i hate myself it’s one of the few emotions i have left i had this 4500 word assignment but every time i went to type it up my words came out, out of order a string of unrecognisable broken symbols a mangled image of my own stupid head i came to the conclusion i was having a mental breakdown the other month i sat in the city mall and stared at all the passing people in their most mundane moments and thought this is the rest of my life this stupid, pointless repetition i watched people rise on an escalator faces fixed blankly on the space in front of them as if they weren’t there at all i watched seagulls poke at one another and squawk into the ground and thought there is more life in them than us i didn’t want to be a fuck up again i would try to read over what’d i’d written for hours on end until i was shaking, on the edge of tears unable to understand why this was happening to me i’d lie in bed and think about the infinite worthless stretch of my life feeling only an untraceable anxiety deep in the pit of my flesh for the longest time i thought all this anxiety and fear came from without that if i learned about existence enough i could excise all the bad parts out but something in my head broke something i couldn’t control maybe some part of me wanted this to happen so i’d have a reason to die.

[Mayhem | Life Eternal cover] A dream of another existence You wish to die A dream of another world You pray for death To release the soul One must die To find peace inside You must get eternal I am a mortal, but am I human? How beautiful life is now when my time has come A human destiny, but nothing human inside What will be left of me when I'm dead? There was nothing when I lived What you found was eternal death No one will ever miss you

hole in the sky. tap tap, the empty vessel flows out. a weightless sink. the hour goes, blaring swell of humidity, and the jug lukewarm, leaven oft in the barred space. I return to my room. I drink the cold milk on the sill. I finish the third wretched spill of the journey to Olympus. Downstairs a howl, a wind slam SOLOM OBSERVATIONAL MATRIX STRUCTURED TASKS AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY TO ASSIST WITH INSTRUMENTAL DECISIONS. I close the door I close the door I close the door I close the In this uneasy slumber, the bed shakes, the windows rattle, the sky splits, the earth floods a red simpering capitulatory spasm of earthly flesh. Here is the circuit, the tired nervous tic of inaction, I shrink back from the outstretched hand, a condition which recommends two pills in the morning to mask the double image beneath my hands. i have slept through the week again, this pathetic flesh obeys nothing, where are my pills inescapable fucking dullery THE JUG IS HOT. I return to my room. I close the door two pills on the sill to go down with the milk THE DOOR SLAMS GALL BUCKLING FIT ODE BREATHLESS CLOSER CLOSER CLOSER BUT THE SOUND REMAINS Figures muffled by the walls. There are guests in the house, the looming presence of multiple species with incomprehensible intentions. In a bout of uncharacteristic curiosity, I slip my sight through the crack of my door. UNDER RCG IT WILL BE MANDATORY FOR ALL CUSTOMS CARGO REPORTERS IN THE AIR SEA AND ROAD INDUSTRIES TO SUBMIT REPORTS TO SARS ELECTRONICALLY. I am unmoved by such perceptions. I prepare the final climb to Olympus. the cyclone is ended. the front door is barred. the jug is cold. the yard is littered with unmoving shapes.

No, that’s not how it goes. Start again. Do you remember the tree on the lake? It was a forest. No, it was black, like tar. It tasted like broken glass. I remember the incense on the drapes. Yes. It clung to our clothes. You cried. No, I smiled. You cried smiling. Yes. I hate it when this happens. What happens? You know? No. Um. Sometimes it feels like the world is too crowded with words. Like it’s too dense to speak. That-- Like there’s something in the air that pushes against my throat. There was a black dog, just then. What? Outside. It’s gone now. Sorry. Start again. Do you remember the tree on the lake? There was a raven. Yes. It was black like tar. It caught a worm once. What? Ravens don’t eat worms. Yeah. It just sat there, with the worm in its beak. The worm squirmed, wrapping itself round the beak, over and over. Is that why you were crying? It wouldn’t stop. It kept going, digging its flesh deeper into the edges. What was your father doing? Smiling. Why? He’d filed for a divorce earlier. Right. I wasn’t there. No, you weren’t. Do you regret locking the doors? Sometimes I can taste the rain before it comes. It’s a skill I’ve had for as long as I can remember. I’m lost. So your father was smiling? No, he was crying. Sorry. I swear--nevermind. Start again. There was a storm in these parts when we were young. The worst storm in a hundred years. I don’t remember. You slept through it. I held your hand all night. Why? Because I was alone. You still are. Yes. I hate it when this happens. What happens? You know? Yes. Where have you been? Everywhere but here. And where will you go? Nowhere. There’s sand in my hair. Don’t shake it on the floor. It’s funny. Sometimes when I look at you, it’s like looking through static. It’s like I’m looking at an impression of a person. I get that a lot. It’s like all my memories of you have blurred together. Vague feelings rise out of the haze. Feelings I recognise, yet cannot describe. I cannot connect them with who you are, what we were, or where we’ve been. It’s like-- Exiting a dream. Yes. Exactly. You feel a gap in your soul. One that has always been. Always been. You held my hand, once? During the worst storm in a hundred years. When was that? Every night.

[by Oli] Please refer to the other Please refer to the other the details have been transferred, we will approach the solution in time, but you must pass by the second first they can be found you can find them, here but first you must get there you must arrive too late they have dissolved please refer to the gulf where they were please taste the melt of their impression left in the floor-boards, wait for the metallic burn to cut your tongue, hold for 5 seconds, and send the results to a third party the third party is down the hall behind the double doors the hall was decommissioned in 2005 and 5 the safety inspection arrived, but never found the place they signed off in passive increment no one has heard from them since but sometimes the attic breathes eviction notices when we laugh too loud it’s unfair, we never complain about the screaming at night, but they never told us how to contact them, so they have the advantage we’d investigate, but there are no doors, we’d leave but there are no doors I sent the email, they are offering free credit, if we drink from the pool for a fixed term but the pool dried up a thousand years ago while we were still dived beneath so we could never resurface childhoods dare, to slip your head in before you know the taste before you know

17-03-2019 whimper paralyzed dreaming of whimpering paralyzed in bed on repeat i keep repeating the same three or four sleep paralysis nightmares with the exact same double waking struggle to be able to scream help and to be able to move if i drift too far i fall into a third state of embodied automation through a corpse processing machine i can hear my flatmates through the walls mumbling and doing nothing every time i close my eyes i start to hear the cheery dance music of the corpse processing machine and i snap my eyes open i'm so tired but the solution is terror irish isles and fields and knolls falling and crashing into stony walls and the endless expanse of oceans little houses peeking through pushing the dough man down

We dream in highways and landslides, miss the bus and walk the industrial zone, rusted barrels and weeds through the milk carbon whine of gutted machinery. I wear last decade’s dress, all black and splayed hollow; you, the ostentation of a formless pullover. You reach into your pocket — the last smoke before you quit, so you say — climb the graves of primary industry and exhale a microcosm of pitch. We don’t speak for days. Years of wasting, fucking on churches, and the emptiness of night walks. I don’t cum because I hate endings and you depart to whatever next fix won’t sort you out. It’s a dreary waste of time and we both know it, but we move in circles before an abyss, growing wretched until nothing remains but traces of a vibrancy we’d never had. After you depart, I mould myself a simulacrum of you. Time slows. I lose touch with my surroundings. Piles form. The imminent dissolves like sugar, like scent on the clothes you left. I find your pullover from months back and it clings like water. And it smells like negative space. And it covers me completely.