
0. Prologue
The sky is turning slightly blue, softly, slowly, without making a fuss about it. At the edge, there’s a thin layer of clouds. A see-through layer of clouds. And as he fell asleep he said, do you know, that. Do you know, you know, the sun? Do you know the sun? And I brushed his hair aside and I said yes. The time before, he laid sideways on his bed, I was looking at old photographs, showing them to him, and he said, maybe now, maybe now it is my time to go.
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1. Teenage fever
Placed under a turquoise fleece blanket,
Covered in white stars, and a thin slice of the moon
Coated on sour cream and onion, by Estrella
I’m feeding them to Bertil, the guinea pig
My best friend’s sister returns from yet another abortion
As Carrie becomes single over and over and over again
My acupuncturist says everything will be all right
Once I relax my pelvic floor and remove my phone from the front pocket
She says that people are finally waking up, she says this is the point of departure the bottom of the pit the steepest slope in our cavities
I don’t want to wake up I want to linger endlessly between siesta and fiesta,
someone pulled the saturation of my dreams to zero percent and
everything became fifty shades of grey,
Yes, I mean the horror movie.
2. In Bed with Beethoven
I wake up to Ludvig’s long strong fingers stroking my neck.
It has been like this, since you have been gone. Symphonies, on repeat.
I was warned about the consequences, but I didn’t take it too seriously, as I consider him a bit too universal to become an obsession, like Justin Bieber or Frank Ocean.
They all had incredibly long fingers.
He said that the moon wasn’t shining as bright as I did.
I showed him the door by howling trice
3. Spiritual elements
Beds, these days, are stuffed with elements.
natural, spiritual elements,
This one is filled with air.
This is an air bed,
It’s filled with the sky, in some sense.
I’m not surprised, as the sky has been canceled since I arrived in Helsinki.
Turns out,
I’m sitting on it
When I was five my grandmother had a waterbed.
A waterbed is at least 500 times better than an airbed, but a waterbed cannot be moved. Transportation is king, they said, by which I knew they have never been in a waterbed, not for real, not like a starfish, not like I have.
There are also earth beds, maakuoppa. These are literal. This way of living, in a pit, in the ground, was a common way for Finns to live until the end of the 19th century. That’s about the same time socialism was blooming in Stockholm. It is accessible in the way we find nature accessible. I like it, I take it and I make it my own. It is in no way transportable, as it is but merely a hole. It is a reversed bed, a bed of nothing.
There is one more type of bed I must mention.
That is a foldable bed. A heteka, an extra bed, for unexpected guests, like you.
I have a new bed; it’s called Japan.
I have a bed called Japan and I didn’t name it myself.
In December I visited a friend who had the same bed. I have the same bed, I said, I just ordered it. Ah, you have Japan? It’s a bit noisy.
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Another friend of mine helped me build the bed.
I said it wasn’t the cheapest one so building it should be somewhat easy. I paid for others to work.
Ok, let’s rawdog this then, my friend says
I don’t know much about raw -
But I do nod, as I know a few dogs.
I know Veikka, a big black poodle who is currently at Playa del Sol.
I know Velma, a slow, hairy but happy husky who is currently Pohjois-Pasila.
I know Jekku, an even bigger and thinner poodle who existed liminally between eating steak and not eating anything at all. He is currently in heaven.
Most of all I know Caesar, who haunted my grandmother for two years. He got stuck between two realities. This is not an easy place to be, for someone who’d prefer to catch the ball and eat digestive cookies.
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4. Gran Canaria
There is a waterfall, a man-made waterfall, dripping down between my eyes. This is commonly misunderstood as a method for torture. This is no method for torture. This is the beginning of a performance. This is me underneath the waterfall. This is me, the fall. As I fall, just above my lips, dry skin meeting tiny pearls of vaporized liquids, liquids that are no longer liquids, a shapeless tear, a tear that used to be a tear but is no longer, I can’t hold on any longer. I’m lying underneath a waterfall, I fall, and you are no longer here.
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I’m cloudwatching. I’m traveling back and forth by airplane, in the skies, I have placed myself above. The sky is today, visited by all sorts of clumps. Slimy, flat, slippery formations penetrating straight through the cumulus. Cumulus is my favorite sort of cloud. It’s puffy, soft, stubborn, irresistible. When I was thirteen a youth-priest visited our school and told us to smile towards god, he said smiling towards god makes us instantly happy, it is a neurological pattern, smiling towards god and the instant happiness that follows. When I get back down, I will smile towards cumulus, I promise. The clouds have now organized their masses in to complex formations, my voice doesn’t carry through this instant choreography, this order, this combat proposal, cloudfront, battlefront, I claim disorder I howl psychopath ballads, I’m cloud-passing, trespassing through masses of pure nothingness, I sing, for you, like I used to do.
I’m leaning towards the wall of the cave. I’m becoming wall, grounding, sedimenting. I stopped rocking and rolling on the floor long ago, these days I’m simply leaning, melting and reformulating, no-no-no that’s not how you put ice up your anus, no no, you must still soften the surface, wash it lube it stretch it, don’t rub your skin too hard, don’t rub your skin.
One time you penetrated me without warning.
The sky has turned grey now. The grey you find in Clas Ohlson’s minimalist paint department. Pink, shady, clouds, dipping in to airy seas, a mass of greyness that I imagine to be honey. Soft, tender, elastic, which it most certainly is not.
I told you that too. That the anus is not by default elastic. It is desperate, confused, anxious, just trying to get rid of the shit, trying to get rid of the shit, trying to get rid of the shit. And what. Surprise, a penis.
I used to be very afraid of penises. Not because of what they can do but because of what they are. Internal organs that at some point slipped out of the body, out of the torso. And there it is, standing, helpless, uninvitedly swollen and uncomfortable. Constantly on the way, in the way, in my way, just wanting to be circluded, by something, anything. I hate organs that feel sorry for themselves, I hate organs that feel entitled. I used to love your penis.
5. The matter
So, what, then. I was to talk about my grandmother. I’m avoiding the topic. I’m avoiding the topic because I’m avoiding work, and somehow I managed to categorize my deceased grandmother as work, so I’m avoiding thinking about her, I’m avoiding thinking about what happened to her, therefore I’m avoiding thinking about myself, I’m avoiding thinking about how I was the world for her and how she was a distraction for me. I avoid thinking about my odd habit to arrive apologizing, too late, to leave apologizing, too early.
I organize time by location. We open the door, we leave the house, this is the first time we have left the house since my arrival, this is the first time we leave the house together in four years, this is the first time you leave your home in four years. You have ran away earlier, like a teenager, left without saying a word, left to see the sun and some flowers, left to feed the squirrel and the rabbit, left to the left, left because you could no longer stay, left and called me, to say, now I left.
But this time we leave together, on purpose, with permission. We almost canceled, you almost canceled, you had no idea what to wear, which shoes, which stick, which hairband. You almost forgot the list. He thought you were too tired. I said that you weren’t tired at all. That we were going to leave, tonight, together, and that everything would turn out just right. The second I closed the door, you started talking. You talked and you didn’t stop until you were out of breath and almost fainted and we sat down for a while. Then you said. You know, I didn’t mean anyone anything bad. I know. I know that, I said. Like I always did, because I always knew. I exist in a flux of lost and confused, but this I know. I know that you didn’t mean anything bad. You just had to go. Yes, you said. I had to. I saw Caesar outside. Right, I said. How come was he there? I don’t know, you answer, but I needed to save him. So, I went out. But then he was gone. And I can’t remember where he went. I can’t, I couldn’t find him. I’m so sorry, I answer. I’m so sorry.
I see now, how tired you are. It is a similar feeling to realizing that my parents are old. This feeling, that someone is halfway to death. Partly dead. Looking at you, I understand everything Descartes had to say. Your body is shit, your mind is reckless. Wired, tender, sexy. Later I went through all of your clothes, one by one, I organized them, I kept some for myself. You had 13 tiny clothes. Tiny bikinis, underwear, tops and shorts that you had made yourself. Apparently you spent a lot of time almost naked.
We kept walking, slower, smaller, holding on to each other. You holding on to dear life, me holding on to you. I wanted to ask you not to leave quite yet, but it wasn’t my position to do so. I wanted to apologize, that we never started those walks, that the pandemic made me unemployed, and you a burden, we were nothing to bother too much with. Nothing to give too much attention to or take care of. I held your elbow, hoping it wouldn’t break in to - my arms, we walked, and you talked, too fast for your breath, too slow for your heart. Only later have I thought about all of your desires. Sweetest tooth, prettiest smile, softest hair. What a catch.
She’s now leaning on my armrest, where I would keep my arm, she’s standing in the way of my memories, she’s talking about Vihreät Kuulat, there are only two left. What a beautiful song, the most beautiful song, she repeats, and I wish I could quietly press myself against you, pull your hair from the roots, you head towards me and push my tongue deep inside your ear. Lick three times, around the lobe and back in. I’m softly placing the tip of my finger just above your lips, in the little gap that is made for my thumb and tell you that you are mine. That you must know, by now, that you are mine. That there are no choices to be made. I place my left hand where your parts end, holding on to the edge, pulling you closer, closer. I pull you through me, in to me, I want you to be me, for a little while, I need you to feel what I feel I need you to see what I see because you are the most beautiful thing I have witnessed. It’s a force of nature not a flag. Ecosystems instead of boundaries. I take care of you and you take care of me. And I take care of her and her and her and you brush my hair one evening, (gently)
6. The intervention
I need to talk about something. The time has arrived to talk about something very important, something that has been bothering me, for some time now. It has bothered me for eight years, to be exact. I haven’t spoken about it, but since I’m asked to speak freely about my desires and fears; I think it’s time to talk about this too. It has to do with a mysterious period of time, spring 2016. It has to do with the city of Helsinki. It has to do with domestication and with wildlife. It is indeed a wild story, about many lost lives. It started in March. I was walking in a parc, I had recently moved back to Helsinki, I had moved in with my mother because I was incapable to take care of myself. I mainly watched ice hockey on her flat tv. But this is not about me, it is about what happened around me, in the darkness, in the shadows of a welfare society. It happened out
Sorry. Could you just,
If you could, send this message to my grandmother,
Hola Stina,
Estoy en la riviera.
I repeat
Hola Stina,
Estoy en la riviera.
That is, I am at the riviera, in Spanish.
Thank you.
8. The beginning
And so, I must start from the beginning, to not get lost.
My aim is to, loosen up, the space between the sternum and the left clavicle, to be able to tell you, that, I must go now
I must exit form the first door at the left, climb out of the window, and place myself underneath the eucalyptus three. It is a three with seven branches, one for each of us, but I’m not a climber, I’m a sediment. I long underneath the three, I log my days and my ashtrays, waiting for him. I have been waiting for him for eleven years, I have been waiting for him to come and pick me up, to take me by the elbow and shove me into the backseat, like he used to do, like we were used to. He used me too. I’m waiting for him to be in a hurry, to be late, to be just a state of my mind a wet and weary dream from the past.
I can’t smell the three, only a vague rotten moist, that insists to remain, that doesn’t belong yet doesn’t evaporate. A rotten spring mist, once vibrant and reckless, but never under my skin. My skin has lost all its appetite, lost its hunger for walking up that mountain, through the valley. I’m loose. My skin is dragging and my tissues hanging, each cell giving in to gravity, The cells are no longer fighting for their rights or human rights or posthuman rights. They’re no longer waving flags or handing posters, they’re no longer participating, they’re melting. I must tell it from the beginning, from the long nail stroking my spine, vertebra by vertebra, all the way to my sphincter and back up again, moving in spirals. The circles remained the same, tiny, fragile, loops, around my seventh vertebra. Light. Circles moving further down, in to, between. Come. I came. Good.
9. How it actually went
In the night I met your lover. I dreamt about their boobs.
Then my digicamera set fire. This is true.
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It was overheating, too hot indeed. I opened the lock and the gateway, and all internal organs flooded. All kinds of wires and batteries fell out. They fell onto a blanket on top of a mattress in front of my window, where odd sorts of plants had started growing in the summer. I can’t remember how or why, I guess some seeds just felt comfortable in that moist. A blue fleece blanket, bright blue. I poured out the organs of the camera and suddenly, a smaller purple plant caught fire. It burned from below. The battery was burning too, a blue fire. Madly hot. I tried to put out the fire, I hit it with something, but it only caught more oxygen, grew stronger. Then another plant caught fire. This time I poured water over it. I peeked underneath the blanket, and underneath the blanket was a whole ecosystem. Small butterflies, worms and nasty tiny animals moving around. Mountains descending and ascending in the most mysterious of ways. It was strange to have this tropical forest in my room, by my window shelf, thriving, without my knowing, without my acceptance. Silently taking over what used to be mine.
9.1 I just wanted to remind you of the morning light on the 18th January, its pinkish shades, blue edges, turquoise tendencies, and also, I wanted to tell you, that in my bed, you looked better than ever.
the pelvic floor gives in to its own structure and I tilt my head whenever you speak, to let your thoughts drip into my ear, I don’t want to miss a single one, I don’t want to miss you anymore, I say. Then what do we have left? You answer. There isn’t much else, than this longing, no secret third thing. Just you and me and the enormous space in between. Why bother filling it, why bother enter, why bother bothering. I’m sitting next to you, head wobbling, yes yes I’ve once experienced a similar thing.
I came to your place the other day, last Wednesday,
You were gone. I almost forgot to empty the coffee from its pot, but I did throw out the ribs from the fridge and the ketchup too and the beetroots in the jar. I stole the cup as I had planned to do, and a few candleholders just in case, it gets dark, before you get there.
I’m getting used to receiving odd messages from family members, old pictures and long descriptions without any commas or dots. How far from right here, right now, is the better?
How far is it the better place, the turning point, the angle where all things start shifting towards the sun. No, I’m not talking about spring, January is no thing. January is no time. January is forever. January is eleven years backwards, 2456 microwave minutes in slow motion, in January I am forever late, never arriving. There are no days, no ways, no crash courses or fitness journeys. No events, just endless aerobics.
if nothing ever happens, if time is simply a decelerating consciousness, a thinning backwards heading hairline, if time is a few long white strings of dead skin hanging loose along the neck, if it is a never-ending half made-up memory that keeps leaking into other memories, if time is leftover melted cheese at the bottom of a tray of lasagna endlessly stretching and widening, if time is no longer linear, nor circular, if time is shapeless, time is a body without organs, time is no body, time is a grey sky that drops into a grey sea if time is flaky like that,
then how could I possibly arrive on time?
What else is there then, what is there to replace the sun and the clouds and the moon and the starts and the distant blue. I lose perspective, when nothing is distant, and nothing is close by. All is mass, all is endless. Endless doesn’t make me feel reckless it makes me feel like an entity like something that needs to form and conform to all that is provided and presented.
The sky is turning slightly blue, softly, slowly, without making a fuss about it. At the edge, there’s a thin layer of clouds. A see-through layer of clouds. And as he fell asleep he said, do you know, that. Do you know, you know, the sun? Do you know the sun? And I brushed his hair aside and I said yes. The time before ,he laid sideways on his bed, I was looking at old photographs, showing them to him, and he said, maybe now, maybe now it is my time to go.
10. Translation
Kerronpa teille mitä minulle on viimeksi sattunut,
Viime kerrasta, viimeisestä,
Ja sillä välin, jos joku,
Voisi lähettää minulle sähköpostin?
Siinä voisi lukea että,
Hei, sain viestisi
Se riittää.
Kiitos