hejinian exercise 1

take a line from a piece in hejinian's My Life and use it to begin a piece of your own writing:

The afternoon happens, crowded and therefore endless. A mistake of what otherwise mingles painful. Red, pinched against a backdrop of everyday abuse, abuse, how long can they hold you in a cell the size of a coffin? Slipping again, he said like bombs behind you, or in your background, real or otherwise. She said turtles, and lavender. I wrote of Picasso once, and lavender, but this is not on the news. Of note is the four years away, four years in isolation, four years of endless happening, crowding ideas of a day that came otherwise before, again, today.