numbered (a timeline) [2012]

  In the autumn of 1988, on a day nothing like today, eight pasty teenage malcontents gathered in a parking lot, somewhere not too far from where they are now -- in the shadow of the 7-Eleven logo -- and bandied about them their educations and their embryonic hopes, as if they were not apart from the world, as if they cared for one another.  And, above any amorous constraints, they came to the collective realization that they were exceedingly tall.

❋     ❋     ❋     ❋     ❋

AISLE 1:      apparently     everyday is shrieking into a variety of circulations
garbage trills are creating friction between the peevish and the brewed
  $1.49

AISLE 2:  fraught with primitivity     this blasphemous sandwich is a transponder
pedaling slices attract like garlic or a stroller full of parentheses
$1.19 (+10 cent deposit)

AISLE 3:  memories are unwrapped     strewn across this habitat like nevermind
initial tangents might be seen as skeletons of engagements
$3.79

AISLE 4:  remnants of whistling twitch     as if volume were a gesture of balance
innocence in the background is an imperfection and weathering knowledge
$1.09

AISLE 5:  a miss is superficial     like the approximations of clockwork delicacies
no one is admittedly axial in this realm of aspersions and hoaxes
["price check on aisle 5"]

AISLE 6:  resin tempers the precedence     seizing sprouts made from advantages
the grain has expired here and is tantamount to forming languages
$7.29

AISLE 7:  looping down this deposit     the fluorescence is a matter of contention
cannons and skeletons stock the shelves with memorial mathematics
$0.49

AISLE 8:  blasphemous     a numbering procedure continues on the endcap
mirrors shift to reveal flickering desserts and an ellipsis idol
$2.19

❋     ❋     ❋     ❋     ❋

          In the autumn of 2012, on a day everything like today, eight damp autonomous elephants gathered in an attic, somewhere not too far from where they will one day be -- in the shadow of a phallic tower -- and bandied about them their educations and their rummaged hopes, as if they were not apart from the world, as if they cared for one another.  And, above any amorous constraints, they came to the collective realization that they were exceedingly temporal.