there’s an ape behind me. he may have left.
i place the 160 dollars in the helping yourself with esp book.
a white dude hands a novel to the brown dude. the brown dude looks in it.
the brown dude is very handsome. he’s pakistani. he works with textiles.
his father died from cancer. he’s scared he will suffer the same fate.
alex steals because she’s jealous of the victim and she likes it.
i steal cuz i was bonnie parker in my past life, alex said. i have to fight the urge to be a criminal.
the priestess criminal is not to be trifled with.
alex’s work is the negation of what came before.

how can she have left? where does she go? i didn’t get a chance to look at her.
the sun and the grey.
he talks and he is painfully aware of me.
i’ve run out of eczema cream. my arm and my abdomen is burning up.
where do i go from here? how does it last?
nothing will make sense now. i won’t remember proper nouns, family, laws, or telephone numbers. everything will be the same and murky. there will be a pressure that will hurt and behind it there will be thoughts and feelings and images and the death of my parents and ancestors.

how was it they were going to die? no one dies here. there are murders and incest and a medieval flatness, but there is no death.
it is an ongoing thing the lecture and the posting. we see they are white and brown and yellow. they can see her. they talk to alex and she doesn’t say much. she says whatever is on her mind. they ask questions. she answers them. they have been advised to ask one question. they can ask whatever question they want and she doesn’t always respond. she is in the astral regions. she looks down at america. it is smaller than she thought. it is smaller than china. she loves china and the chinese. they have never hurt her. she has never known a chinese person even though she is chinese herself. if she has something to say she says it. she doesn’t have acute feelings. for the most part she is empty. they can stay as long as they like after they have asked the question. when am i going to die they ask in the guise of another question.
alex is in her wagon. she has a brain disorder. the battery is low. she reads her book on how to develop esp. she has named her higher self george. she likes george when he does what she wants. he doesn’t want her to wash. she hates george for not letting her use his shower and bathroom mirror. she hasn’t cleaned herself in a month. she asks george the higher being when she is going to be famous. he tells her she will be famous and wealthy one day soon. he tells her to talk about the mental images she experiences when they ask when they are going to die. she closes her eyes in her wagon. she draws her cat and poodle close to her. she sees mental images of her father and mother and sister. she hates her sister for stealing her ideas. they are twins and one knows what the other is thinking. sam knows what alex is thinking at any given time. sam is wealthy but not famous. she is married to a hedge fund manager. alex doesn’t answer my texts. i tell her she should wash her self in the columbia river. i tell her george doesn’t like it when she
does as she likes when she likes. she says fuck george. she doesn’t need george.
she needs alex. she needs clairvoyant witches like herself.
i’m middle age and resigned to lawyers, doctors, and educators.
sam reads henry miller she looks like a librarian. her breasts are larger than i remember. i think she had surgery. she didn’t remember me. she is twenty seven. it’s painful how age makes such a difference in how i like a woman. she has bad skin. i love women with bad skin. i didn’t know what to talk about so i asked her advice about what to do about alex. she cut me off when i talked about myself . she has ready made responses. she sounds like she has been in therapy.
i have to tell sam what i need. i’m not good at knowing what i need. i forget so easily these days.
sam doesn’t want to share her instagram because she thinks i will stalk her.
sam likes hurting men if they like it. she doesn’t like to do it if they don’t like it.
she has to think what she does is normal. i want her to know i like it when she takes advantage of me. she likes to read. she leads a complicated internal life but she likes to
keep things simple. i asked her more questions than i talked about myself. she is going to make me suffer. i really like how she thinks about needs.
sam has on doc martins and a sweat shirt. her teeth are white and small like alex’s teeth. they have similar teeth. she has large masculine hands. she removed her lipstick. it effected me in some ugly unknown way when she did it.
i don’t want this lipstick on my mouth, she said.
sam has a primary partner.
she removed the money from the esp book.
esp, she said when she looked at the title. it’s intuition.
yes, i said.
she is willing to meet me at a motel. she manages her time. she likes money.
she moved her head and hoisted her hair to the left.  i feel emotional. i look to her  lead. i think about her thighs. i felt them before when i massaged them.
she appears unattached even though she has a primary partner and other partners.
everyone comes and goes, sam said.
i feel anxious and unaccomplished. i want to talk to sam about my daughter but then i thought she would think badly about me for talking to a stranger about her. i also think i don’t want her to know about my daughter.
sam is doing her thing and feeling productive. i want her to feel confident. i don’t not want to be connected. i find it creepy not to be. sam is used to finding an opening, when the person she’s with let’s go and gives himself away.
sam’s fingernails are milky white and have no nail polish. they give me a weird sensation i’m unable to describe. i have felt the otherworldly sensation before.          i want to know what she thinks about middle age.
amanda bashes and throttles me and smashes her clitoris in my nose and mouth.
she groans. she doesn’t make a sound when she has an orgasm, there is stillness and peace.
amanda didn’t tell me she had to go to dc. she thought i would be angry.
i only saw her for two hours. we had “good intentions” beer. she said her flight was delayed but i didn’t believe her.