Adam Sonderberg

Adam Sonderberg lives in Chicago, IL. He is a core-member/composer for The Dropp Ensemble, Civil War, and Haptic. His solo work appears on crou015, the third installment of the Folktales series. More information on Sonderberg’s work can be found at www.longboxrecordings.com

other recumbent forms

today this room your chipped tooth I have it within me whether or not I want it there it is I eat pace the room and talk while chewing on the toilet I sit longer than I need to thinking but the lighting is too crass and I want to get up and walk from room to room down a hallway with two different floors one dark the other light both wood that’s better you know I wait for the right time to sleep a time when I won’t appear crazy to others for sleeping so early in the day the clock would tick but it’s digital so I wait for the number to change never fast enough when I need it always too fast when I want to savor an awareness of something or other waking when it’s not light out means that I am only sleeping when it’s dark if I lived at the poles or some other extreme northerly or southerly location that would be a normal occurrence my neighbors would know what I’m talking about we could feel a similar irritation perhaps that would make me less the way I am if I knew other people felt as I do but I’m sure people all over places know people who live next door or underneath or above I’m pretty sure they know as well but that doesn’t comfort me because you don’t know and you not knowing makes everything feel less than It could be if you did know I think you have a hard time making your desire not to know clear to me either that or I refuse to believe that you don’t want to know now it’s cold and the wind is picking up cold rain turns to sleet and I wait for snow the snow will muffle all of this like a million soft fists descending on ants unprepared inside I wait where it’s warm and noises feel pushed back into a little quiet place where things continue without my participation I hesitate before getting up from the chair where I’ve been waiting knowing that the floor will creak when I walk across it into the other room where a picture of you used to be but has since been removed and placed in the garbage along with food scraps and wrappers I am not mournful about that I clear my throat and get a whiff of decay that must have traveled up from my chest cavity it’s a muted bitter taste that nestles itself at the point where my jaw meets yes on either side it gives me the impression that my teeth are rotting but I know it isn’t true because my gums don’t bleed when I brush and there is no pain when I chew it was a brisk day and no leaves could be found on the trees nor on the ground for that matter they had been pounded into the earth by a an untold number of footfalls the wind was blowing much as it is today and the water to our left was choppy making the small boats oblige in tandem it was an honest light the kind that accentuates a person’s blemishes every pore is visible every ingrown hair and the yellowness under the eyes is perfectly illumined that photo now in the garbage was taken there in the reflection of a plastic slide that constituted one third of a sleek play lot I’m lying or maybe I’m unsure those pictures were never developed the roll is on top of a bookcase in what should be my dining room but instead houses a drafting table the angle of which makes it challenge to put a plate on without it sliding off and onto the floor a terrible mess that would be positively terrible the last time I made any attempt to clean this room was around the time the photo was taken and apparently never developed now I am sure I need to dismantle this room as the things in it are no longer to my liking it would appear that my tastes have changed new things interest me and this room presents the visitor with an inaccurate picture of my current state a more streamlined appearance perhaps but stay out of trouble because it’s better when no one is knocking at the door