with: kiara lindsay, alana kushnir, andy connor, kirby casilli performed live on the 16th of september at lebowskis

I’M WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE BUT TRUST ME PLEASE

kiara lindsay

today the only thing I cared about was

the cobalt blue bed sheets I had ordered online

and this person on the tram

with a face like a dessert

my teeth are already rotting

only three hours post consumption

I was looking at them too hard

with my irises all large and hungry

I caught this person looking at me while I wrote

poems about what I could see or dream or some combination

now I feel guilty but I’d feel more so if

I’d made nothing today instead

an inappropriate poem could be better

than none

it’s all sensual with me today

I wanna forget about it but I also wanna

get stoned

touch all my stuff

it’s all very fickle and fleeting and unimportant

until that’s all I have left

this person I was looking at

gets off the tram

everyone goes back to their guard

and I watch from the front row seat I paid $4.30 for

who will be my next

poetic victim

who will rot my teeth

right outta their young healthy gums

and when will I stop feeling bad about it

accept my addiction

swallow my dessert whole

underneath the concrete outside the mechanic

kiara lindsay

I’m underneath the concrete outside the mechanic

I can still feel my fingers for now

the concrete was set when I got underneath

so it’s not in my ears or nose

I think it would’ve been better if it had been wet

to stop me in my sensory tracks

even though it’s gritty and cold

its worst quality is that it forces me stopped and still

my joints are locked and my nerves will not forgive me for it

I knew my nails were weak and malleable

but against this concrete

I can understand what that really means

I wish I didn’t wear so many layers today

the feeling of drowning was always inevitable

but it was quicker with all this fabric involved

I’m thinking about drinking a coffee with you in preston

and how I felt so uncomfortable in my layers

but grateful that I was hidden beneath them

now with this experience under my belt

I feel I will always crave nudity the way I do in summer

I’ll never survive this concrete feeling

surely it will outlive me

I can’t live another winter

and be forced back under something that’s not a choice

this is how it feels to be submissive

trapped under concrete

familiar like clothes

oppressive as ever and

not a choice

I like the feeling of submissiveness

until I remember where it comes from

where it lives

until I try to use my malleable nails

to climb out of it

and my fingertips are left unprotected and scabbing

I don’t wanna be told my desire is uncomplicated

and I can prove it

in a poem

THERE ARE TOO MANY TYPES OF GRASS TO CHOOSE FOR YOUR BACKYARD

kiara lindsay

i think i prefer the reptile so push me overboard please

kiara lindsay

i am thinking about how somewhere a crocodile is inside some mangroves. it’s old and quiet but also complex and tired. i think congratulations and then fall into fear-based respect. when i went to darwin i spent $30 on a croc charm. it feels powerful and disrespectful to hang it from my earlobe. i still do it. we’ve lived in this house for eleven months. it’s dark so we had to put all the plants in the sunroom. it gets an hour of sun a day, sometimes. i don’t go in there because there’s probably spiders. a month ago i went on a crocodile tour on the adelaide river. the guide called a female croc a floozy. said she “gets around.” i wonder what it’s like to live his life and genuinely believe slut shaming a croc is a good thing to mention on a croc tour. the biggest croc on the river met us in the middle. when he lifted his tail i have to say i shrieked. i didn’t want to shriek in ear shot of the tour guide. he didn’t look at me anyway probably because i have a look i hope he hates. i say that to convince myself of my comfort. i don’t do a good job. my back was sweating against the seat when the croc named casanova met us in the middle. the guide told him to “get back.” he dangled the meat further away from the boat. the croc took the bait. jumped for it. leapt for it. swam away unamused. basked in the 4pm sun. i wanted to do the same. have a snack, go for a paddle, dig my feet into the hot sand. my dream could’ve come true if i’d run my mouth and told the guide everything i’d been thinking. instead i go back to the city i live in, hang a croc from my ear and sit in the dark.

HEY BOY

andy connor

Hey boy, are you an out-of-service tram?
Because I don’t want to ride you, and you seem empty inside.

Hey boy, are you a Marvel movie?
Because I feel like I’ve seen you before, and you don’t let women talk enough.

Hey boy, are you a fifth century Etruscan tomb?
Because your veneer is crumbling, and nobility is dead inside you.

Hey boy, are you a subprime mortgage?
Because I don’t understand you, but I have a vague sense that you’re to blame for many catastrophes.

Hey boy, are you a taxidermied owl on my grandfather’s mantle?
Because I’m sorry somebody did that to you, but you’re freaking me out.

Hey boy, are you the Sacrament of the Eucharist?
Because for a crumby flake, the amount of drama you’ve caused is unbelievable.

Hey boy, are you the feeling of regret?
Because when I leave here, you will not accompany me.

PODCAST

andy connor

Hi, welcome to Podcast,
a podcast about what happens
when you set out to make a difference,
and end up making a podcast.

What IS a podcast, anyway?
Is it something you listen to?
Is it something you feel?
Is it something you eat?
I was hungry, so I decided to find out.

Everyone knows that the greatest podcast
Is the one you say to yourself inside your own head.
The one that tells you that you’re not good enough.
That you’re disappointing the people you love.
That the failure of Soviet communism was your fault.
This isn’t that kind of podcast.
I’m glad you killed communism.

Let’s get one thing straight. I’m just like you, except I have a microphone, which makes me better. On a Darwinian level, I mean. If you and I were in the wild, I could use this microphone to lay an elaborate trap for you, tie you up, and leave you to the wolves. I guess you could say that’s what I’m using it for right now. I guess you could say that the real monster was the post-industrial capitalism we made along the way. I guess you could say …
enter the promo code and receive your first month FREE at Squarespace.

Because let’s face it. The world is confusing.
Some people live in small towns and don’t even have any trenchant insights about it.
Some people go to jail, and don’t even bother making it inspirational.
Some people don’t want a podcast made about them. And those people need a podcast most of all.

And that’s why you’re here.
You’re here to half-remember some anecdotes.
You’re here to listen to heartwarming stories about people who are foreign but, you know, not too foreign.
You’re here so you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts, your ~vile, terrible thoughts~, even for a moment.

Look, I can’t claim to have all the answers. How could I?
I’m just an algorithm combining podcasty-sounding sentences into a piece of monetisable content.
I had a feeling there had to be more to the story.
I’d come this far, how could I turn back now?
Because in the end, what brings us together is stories, which is an anagram of Squarespace if you both add and remove some letters.

WHAT IS IT LIKE

andy connor

It’s like throwing a spear into a sprinkler.

It’s like giving mouth-to-mouth to a lake.


It’s like inheriting a diamond and immediately stabbing every mirror you can find.

It’s like realising that both of your parents are mirrors, and that you are a mirror also, and that what you had previously mistaken for love was merely the vertiginous feedback loop of mirror reflecting mirror reflecting mirror.


It’s like standing on a 400-foot yacht, and pissing down onto a crowd of scared 300-foot yachts.

It’s like being sold, but for a breathtakingly high price.


It’s like your newborn child winking at you and mouthing ‘play along’.

It’s like granting asylum to the moon.


It’s like realising that the escalator conspiracy goes all the way to the top.

It’s like cosplaying as a person who can handle it.


It’s like a sitcom starring the black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

It’s like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and perfectly assembling your relationship with your parents.


It’s like wearing a full suit of armour beneath your business-casual blouse, and no-one ever noticing.

It’s like realising that you can walk on water at the exact instant you realise your friends can’t.


It’s like every Secretary-General of the United Nations arguing over who’s the best kisser.

It’s like every Secretary-General of the United Nations turning to you, eyes smouldering, saying you must settle this.


It’s like having your phone surgically implanted in your chest, so that your heart vibrates when they text.

It’s like wanting to text back, but not being able to, because your phone is in your chest.

(It’s like that, forever.)


It’s supposed to be like driving a car made of ice.

But it’s more like sitting in a puddle of engine-warm water in the middle of a highway.


It’s supposed to be like rage against the machine.

But it’s more like sadness inside the machine?


It’s supposed to be like how birds feel to the sky.

But it’s more like how the sky shone through the crack in your neck.

I AM FOR YOU

andy connor

Human sexuality is like a desert island washing up on the shore of another desert island. Fine if that’s what you’re into.
But.
What I like is standing completely still, and being pecked apart by anxious birds.
What I like is invisibly catching the air around you.
What I like is somersaulting when you sneeze, and riding your laugh like a mechanical bull.
What I like is you leaning on a balcony on New Years Eve, stretching and yawning and breathing me in.
I swear to God, there’s a way you look at me sometimes
that’ll make me swear in front of God.
I am roasted and glazed for you, hurled into the sick of the night.
I am a Civil War steamboat for you, showing its ankles above the water.
I am the world’s smallest violin for you, playing unironically.
I am a trapdoor in a graveyard for you.
I am Blu-Tak and lilacs for you.
I am the 400s of the Dewey Decimal System for you.
I am a whole new way of thinking about arson for you.
I am here in the sink of the pale of the dawn for you.
I am oil in a puddle for you.

And you are a thunk of ice
melting new shapes into my alphabet.

line 2 was curated by ben sendy-smithers, ruben and daniel ward