Draw Lines, Write Days, Count Fish

If you were to throw a dart at a map, there is probably some telling where you'd end up. Depends on the map, depends on where you aim, depends on how far left or right you're standing. A lot less is left to chance than you might think.

Take a good physicist, your high school math teacher, and, say, a travel agent, and I doubt it would take them more then a few hours to piece together the likelihood that you'd find yourself in Kuala Lumpur.

But then, maybe you're already in Kuala Lumpur. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure they have a few good physicists there.

More importantly, you left your map on the wall in your travel agent's office. With a dart in it. This isn't the worst thing you could do, because it's not too hard to find maps...around. But your travel agent is a bit miffed because she shares her office with the office of the motel her parents run and the dart is starting to spook everyone's customers.

None of this really matters, though, because you've found your way to a nice little complex geared towards foreign travelers and the plaster walls inside your little straw bungalow are painted your favourite shade of aquamarine. Plus, there's some rustling outside, which you know is your girlfriend shaking the city's sand and dirt out of the sarong she was wearing earlier. She's not the love of your life, but she's a good sport and she'll let you nestle up to her, even in this sweltering heat.

By the way, the math teacher died of lung cancer with two devoted sons by his side, and the physicist you left behind in Kuala Lumpur when you decided to go to Thailand has started wondering, three years later, if you're ever going to send him that augury kit you said you would get him. Your math teacher was still a little pissed you never called to cancel before leaving for Kuala Lumpur, when he died.

But the sun is pretty hot, and you're on your sixth Singapori beer of the afternoon. Your girlfriend left you years ago when she realized you really would have let that scorpion have her if it meant saving your own ass, and you still keep that sarong she liked to wear in case she ever comes back.

You're lousy. You haven't shaved for days and your t-shirts are all yellowed and grayed from years of exposure to the sun, the dirt, and the sweat. The woman next to you on the plane keeps going on about how going to the Philippines had been a dream of hers ever since she was eleven and that foreign exchange student she used to call Timmy gave her a paper rose. She's obese, and sun burnt, and has awful curly blonde hair that reminds you of the lunch lady at your elementary school. You wish she would shut up, but when she giggles she kind of reminds you of your mom, who is going to be pissed when you show up on her doorstep after all these years abroad.

False Idol

I've got a face full of doubt. I've got question marks where my eyes should be. I keep my eyes on the pavement, my head ducked down. I make myself invisible. This is not the man I meant to be.

I am a woman. I can't be defined on my own terms. Even to be more than just a girl, to be anything, I've got to find my masculinity.

I reside in an inner tension. I won't be resolved until I grow up. Become a man. I'm uncomfortable with my masculinity.

I'm ungendered. It falls away. I have no strength, no quality, I am nothing but enduring flesh. A weak sense of self will not do for me. I'm profound. I'm a picture of utility. I am rigour and insolvency.

A Song in Flight

I was here, and when I wasn't they told me you had gone. You're beautiful to me. I turn my hand, I see a memory. A strand of hair and the light on your cheek. I'm alive, everyday, and you're a beautiful memory. So distant, so far. But the sights and the sound, the air and the feeling, it all stays with me.

I'm amazed, how beautiful you've become. How life continues. How there's so much I don't know about you. So much I haven't shared in. I'll always have those memories, green, golden, white. I'll always see your face, and know that you are happy. If there's anything left I can give, that's all that I would wish for you.

Go on, go happily. Live your life, and let it be as far away from mine as the rivers and roads should take it. Find joy, find love, and tell me nothing of this. I cherish a simple hope that wherever you go, you will go with joy.