TOUCH ME THERE WHERE I LIKE TO BE TOUCHED, THE SAD PLACE
a novel
It is a kind of cloth, a darker beginning with black roots. It is a pleasure where you please and do not need from me. He tells me. A bite as if squeezing, as if saying “butternut, my baby, butternut squash.” He often wished that which had not come, singing, but come along sneezing and that made mucus splat. Say play with jowls. It is easy to be better to plump it off on it on it’s side. H is for house.
Why our stars are filled so full like fat splats of rubber and purpose. I know the answers is no. I heard her say so. There is no question. They do as well as say they can they say so and are so saying so, simply. That’s me using that word that means “to shut in, out, or off”. There I said it. And you can see what romance is. Look for the lulls in his lullabies.
Versed and worsen still. Bellhop the boy to be your maid of honor. This one said this one and that I may I might. Torque the best biddings for futures lost. Just as well or welcome. If you are now then one and ten in one our one to be two for one one. Your prize. Indeed, sometimes one needs to stop describing the other and shut up, closed. The best screaming usually comes to you in beds. Of course not, not ever knot the knitting brow-face perplexed. Grab that honkey he’s starting to run away.
There are intimates in the air, damn spots, and curry the last one to drop. Say nouns forgive and you lie. Say nouns. Spray nouns like sand across the floor.
I remember well and cannot say I did or did not or didn’t even try. This table means it’s not sturdy but can hold an egg. Eggs are made to be beaten. This table has no legs.
Just in case but will not will at all, I’ll keep the letter to myself. I’ll kindle it gently across the flames and let the smoke have its say.
Chapter One
Once, there was a time that stood out from the others so as to say to the world “I am here, I am!” This was a time of happy strife. Of finding a tree and carving a hole in it, the whole thing a hole so as not to be a tree anymore. Has anything to do with disease and the human mind, or not. He says he’s not alone, and hasn’t been forever. He says there are people here and they talk to him and he says things back that make them smile. He says this talking on the phone so I cannot discern if he is lying or not, not being able to smell him.
Not quite along the beaten perch, there is the bird from the tree having left its nest so suddenly and thinking strong thoughts about her tree becoming a hole. A nest is a hole, to hide away in, but she had built hers to flaunt and flutter her shine. She will find a way out. But not today. Today she is a woman talking to a man about pantyhose on the phone.
Of course there are times where things are happening so quickly that there isn’t enough time to get your eggs. Of course. There are reasons for studying algebra but not grammar. There are reasons for everything, each has its reason. It is one thing to think of a thing and to think well of it and another to call it applesauce.
Timothy spends time thinking to himself how he enjoys the rapture of beginning the rhumba, but not the inevitable collapse. They shoot anything, don’t they? Timothy takes his time in thinking and then is done with his thinking and goes on to his drinking, where he spends his time feeling. The image of Andrew barely out of his head.
He replaces that image with a hole, big enough for entire cities of pigeons to nest in, comfortably.
Chapter 2
She shutters about smoking something special she bought for herself at the five and dime. She watches her shows and talks on the phone, endlessly mis-correcting her friend for using the word retread. After all there are things you know and know you know and know you know you know.
She puts her feet up on the coffee table and takes a break.
She flips the channel. How are books like people and people like animals and animals like clouds and clouds like cotton and cotton like candy and candy like bourbon and bourbon like books, only better?
She takes her feet off the coffee table and sits.
Before she was bitten by the pit bull, she used to rest like the best of them. Now she has to find the right position to rest. And she rests, usually a few minutes after the rest of them.
She decides to cook some eggs for dinner. Being soft, they were easier to eat. Being soft, they were easier to relate to, but difficult to understand.
Soft is soft is soft and unmanageable, but so comfortable.
After eating the eggs she cooked for herself she lights another match and pours herself a drink.
Novelty is the spice in life, and she hates spicy foods. Once, she went to an Indian restaurant on the advice of a friend and was shitting what looked like figs for weeks.
She watches her shows again, every time they end, pressing PLAY a second, third, fourth time. She likes her shows. She likes her shows like she likes her women: easy to replay.
She once had a roommate who would sit and rub her feet and refill her drink. She would talk to her about her day, make suggestions for improvements, commiserate with her flanked unhappiness. She would tell her that everything would work out for the best, the best being what she absolutely deserved. She would laugh at her jokes. She would watch movies with her and hit PLAY when they were over. She would say that when her mother died that she was a good woman and in a better place now. She was in a better place. Her notion of giving felt the need to be fulfilled and was filled by her. The away time, while pleasant, always left her with a hole in her heart.
She hits PLAY, once again.
