Nothing Happens Next and It Looks Like Us

In the place where things are always the same I am always
the same. The sky is always the same. The word same is thrown
until it becomes a gentle hiss instead of a word, a cooing
hiss. Same.

I have neighbors. They are exactly like me. I say hello to the neighbor
who is exactly like me in the morning.

I ask what he had for breakfast and chuckle because I had it too.
I tell him about the thing we both read.
I ask him if he’s heard from our mother recently.

I go inside of my house which is the same as I have left it. I didn’t leave it.
In the place where things are always the same there is no motion.
I am a gentle hiss.

I say hello to my neighbor in the morning.
I think about what his morning was like.
I wonder what we owe to each other.
I know he is wondering this too.
I cock my head at him while I think this and
he cocks his head at me.
We keep our heads cocked while we walk toward one another.
Soon we attain proximity
such that it becomes clear that we will bump chests.
I know that I will not stop and I know that he will not stop. Then
we touch and one moves right through the other.
I stand on his lawn and he on mine. We cock our heads at each other.

In the place where things are always the same
it is important to check thoroughly for changes.

Every morning I say hello to my neighbor and
my neighbor to me.

I begin in his hair. Gently
I count every strand. Carefully
I measure the length of each.

I take notes.
I compare my notes with those I took
yesterday. Next

I count the words he holds in each ear.
I pull them out and make sentences.
The right insists, traffic cone telephone.
The left, heart cord smorgasbord.
I read the sentences to him as I do this,
refilling the space. I weigh
the weight weighing down his shoulders.
I look directly into his eyes.

I stare into him for as long as I need.
I check whether the world he is seeing is still the same.
I pay close attention to the reflection which his eyes cast back.
I see myself there. I consider whether I have changed in his worldview.
I see the world that he sees that we inhabit. I consider where it differs from my own understanding of it.

Looking even closer I can see the reflection of him which my eyes cast through the reflection of
me which his eyes cast.
This degree of separation violences perception. I step out of his eyes, then. I step out of his
visage seen through my eyes’
reflection as it is articulated by the reflection of myself cast by his eyes’ reflectiveness.
I kiss his forehead.

I Am Afraid You Will Not Laugh

An angry person kicked down my door. It is splintered and sputtering. In its honor I spend the whole day
thinking about doors. I can do this because I do not have a job or a family. I’m wide open. I go into the city
to find doors so that I can observe them. My study is anthropological because I like the word and the way
its activity describes me. Description is like a door when it accounts for two sides of a coin. When I find a
door I knock on it. I write down every possible answer to a knock knock joke. Were I to read them to the
door I would have to know morse code. It is lucky that I do. .. / .- -- / .- ..-. .-. .- .. -.. / -.-- --- ..- / .-- .. .-..
.-.. / -. --- - / .-.. .- ..- --. .... .-.-.- / .--. .-.. . .- ... . / .-.. .- ..- --. .... .-.-.- / --- .-. .- -. --. . / -.-- --- ..- / --. .-.. .- -..
/ .. / -.. .. -.. -. .----. - / ... .- -.-- / -... .- -. .- -. .- ..--.. The phrase When one door closes another one opens
suggests that every door has a partner door. Like soulmates, these doors are in love with one another.
They make love by performing a series of openings. It is all very vulnerable. Or, it suggests that every
door is really two doors. The door opens onto duality. I understand that I can be two things at once if I am both
the cause and effect of my duplicity. I approach an elevator. I compose a treatise on the spatio-temporal
logics of a door that is responsible for many rooms. Writing it was easy, but reading it confuses me, so I
burn it. In a doorway with no door I contemplate the meaning of absence. It feels wrong to be present
while I do this. I leave the doors by using a door. Philosophically, this is not groundbreaking, but
anthropologically, it speaks to my observational acuity as well as my entanglement with the subject. I type
up my notes and use them to apply for a very large financial grant. In my application I say things like I
will always have two sides to consider, and, While we understand the causal relationship between one
door and another, we still do not know what is the relationship between a door and a window. I am
awarded the very large financial grant, with which I purchase an extremely ornate door.

A Ladder to Stand On

Some children set up a lemonade stand on a roof. They hung a ladder.
Like a game, their rules were simple: if I made it to the roof,
my lemonade was on the house. If I fell off of the ladder,
they would throw things at me until I died, and then descend to loot
my corpse. It was well within their rights as young entrepreneurs
to desire my valuables. They held boomerangs and pinecones
shot through with nails to prove their business savvy.

These weren’t those children. These children sold lemonade
on the ground in a long line. There were at least a thousand of them,
maybe more, each holding their own pitcher and stack of cups.
I could not ascertain the nuances in lemonade quality down the line.
In unison the children chanted Lemonade! One dollar! over and over.
This felt like a business mistake to me. These children did not aspire
to murder. They were not cutthroat enough to make it. I suggested to one
child that he would be smart to sell his lemonade for ninety-nine cents to
undercut the line. The chanting stopped. He told me to go to hell.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine children, maybe more,
held me to the ground while he squeezed a lemon into my eye.
Look at you, he sneered, you don’t even have a ladder to stand on.