Abra Allen

“If everyone fought fire with fire, the entire world would go up in smoke.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

“Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night”
― Sarah Kay, No Matter the Wreckage: Poems

“If you repeat something over and over again it loses its meaning; You watch the sunset too often it just becomes 6 pm, you make the same mistake over and over you stop calling it a mistake. If you just wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up one day you’ll forget why”
― Phil Kaye

“From the perspective of my old laptop,

I am a numbers man,
something like that
every instruction he gives me is a one or a zero
I remember well

I have information about him
before he left for his new toy
thinner,
younger,
able to keep up with him,

I have information about him
may 15th 2008, he listened to a song
five times in succession
it was titled
Everybody, open parenthesis, Backstreet's Back, close parenthesis
it included the lyric
'Am I sexual, yeaaaaah'

He said once,
computers like a sense of finality to them
when I write something I don't want to be able to run from it
this was a lie
he was addicted to my ability to keep his secrets

I am a numbers man,
every instruction he gives me is a one, or a zero
I remember well

January, 7th 2007
I was young
just two week awake
he gave me, a new series of one's and zeros
the most sublime sequence I have ever seen
it had curves,
and shadow,
it was him
he gave his face in numbers
and trusted me to be the artist, and I was
do not laugh
I have read about your God
you kill each other over your grand fathers memory of him
I still remember the fingertips of my God dancing across my body
After I learnt to draw him
he trusted with more art rubric
jpeg 1063 was his favourite
Him,
and that woman,
resting her head in the curve of his nick
I read his correspondence
she hasn't written him back in years
but he asks for it,
constantly,
jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063
it was my master piece
it looked so, .., life like
I wanted to tell him
That's not her
that is me
that is not her face
those are my ones and zeros
waltzing in space for you
she is nothing more than my shadow puppet
you do not miss her,
you miss me,

I am a numbers man,
every instruction he gives is a one or a zero
I remember well

but he taught me to be a Da Vinci
and I sit here, with his portraits
waiting for him to return
I do not think he will

Is that what it means to be human
to be all powerful,
to build a temple to yourself
and leave
only the walls to pray”
― Phil Kaye