Find a weapon. Anything will work. Yeah, a pen is perfect. Use your weapon on everyone except yourself. Make them ugly. Accentuate every out of place contour, every blemish every grotesque discoloration you can think of. Take your weapon. Turn it on yourself. Make their ugliness your own. Know it was always yours.

Lay awake at night. Stare at the ceiling in your bed until your eyes adjust to the dark room and it is bright as day. See how deep the shadows truly are. Watch the creatures crawl out from the depths - scurry across the room. Always just outside your vision. Take your weapon. Imagine what they look like. Place the forms of the most disturbing things you have known on them. Dismember them. Disembody them. Strip them of any piece of them that makes them look like you. Contemplate yourself. Take your weapon. Draw the pieces of them that are you.

Drift off. Feel their hands wrap around your ankles. Don't be afraid. They are not forgiving but they are not unsympathetic. Drift further. Feel them looming over you. Sense their warning. Take your weapon. Spin their wisdom to fit your narrative. Use your weapon on your self. Find the narrative that unwinds your truth.

Look in to the fire.

Tell me what you see.

Ah,

I see you
The way you spiral
Enmeshed through empty space
A dance not seen or observed in a usual sense
Developed —
Exposed —
Built up into an overpowering neon scene I can not look upon, nor would I wish to look away from.

Oh,

I hear you
Chattering cicada rhythms
Pulsing— pulsing—
Wild, rhythmic chattering
tk tk tk tk tk
A low hum, a machine?
The sound of my blood
Coursing past my eardrums— a machine?
Wild, pulsing — pulsing, chattering machine hum
Tk tk tk

Mh,

I feel you
Or I feel something
Well, maybe not something
But certainly a lack of nothing
Alack, not nothing
Or it would be easier to call it something
But i can not call it something
For fear I may be placing too much faith in it

It shoots up my spine
In to the center of my skull
Explodes
I feel the shock in my core
I gasp
I am awake
I am alive
I am
Aren’t I?

I pulled my lighter out of my pocket

And dropped it on the floor

Surely accidental

I bent over to pick it up

And thought, “Does this imitate art?”

In doing so, I can say conclusively:

“It might.”

I found something
I can not unsee it
I can not unhear it
Although I never really could see it could never really hear it
I thought it up once
I could not tell you if I wanted to—
It will not go away—

I see it behind every scene
Its presence mocks me
Makes absence of the wonders of the world
How could something be beautiful juxtaposed with such obscene, grotesque clarity?

I can hear it always between every word spoken
It frames them as they roll off the tongue
Encases the vibrations as they make their way through the empty space and into my skull
Forcing connections between defunct neurological pathways trying to understand something—
Anything—

It’s the place where my thoughts come from
The feeling that penetrates deep within me

It is not dark
It is not silent
It is not numb
It is not empty

It is inevitable

It reaches from behind me and pulls at my ribcage
It weighs on my shoulders and gnaws at the base of my skull

Some days, it is a rabbit
It whispers in my ear
You are big
Your bones are strong
Run
Make for green meadows
We are waiting for you there

Others it is a dragon
It whispers in my ear
You are small
Your flesh is weak
Run
Make for dark chasms
My fire will find you

Its breath burns my nostrils
Fills my lungs
Consumes my thought
I am rendered helpless by its sting

How could something be painful juxtaposed with something so calm

So blinding
So deafening

How could something be so dark
So silent
So numb
So empty

How could something be so

Permanent

Sometimes I feel like I am about to figure out the punchline.

Everyone stops and watches.
Waits to see if we can end the charade.

Here—
Let me try—

Infant dies in NICU, never gets to question the nature of its existence.

No—
Wait—

Three year old child chokes on toy labeled not for children under the age of four.

No—
Hold up—

Six year old drowns in pool; parents too ****** up to notice.

No, no—
****—

It doesn’t have that ring of humor to it, that can’t be it.

I can feel it though, the laughter on the tip of my tongue waiting to boil over.

Here—
Let me try again—

Nine year old finds his parent’s candy, suffocates on his own *****.

No, no, no —
I’m close, I can feel it—
How about—

12 year old child plays with power tools, electrocuted.

No, no, no—
No, no—

21 year old man drives drunk, crashes into cemetery.

No, no, no—
No, no—
No, no—

25 year old man gets ******* sick of trying to see what’s on the other side of the painting, takes a bath in his own blood.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—

Wait—
Here—

ENTIRE GENERATION spends their whole lives trying to distract themselves from the fact of their mortality.

None Survive.

I saw you trance dance in the moonlight

I was too ****** up to speak

The way the fire light - it danced with you

Made shadows of your seams

If I could go back to that place

I’d tell you all the things I’ve seen

We could dance until the sun belied

The words we can not speak

We could trance dance in the moonlight

Get too ****** up to speak

Stand beside the fire;

Make shadows of our seams

I had a dream, yesterday, 3:33 in the morning.
The witches — they play with me — with my mind.
By the river that flows beneath the ash on an island in the sky.
They take me to a place that I have sought but can not find.
Where a river flows beneath the ash on an island in the sky.
They hang me from the tree, stick blades into my side. My blood — it fills the well until all the secrets rise.
Until all unknown I find by the river that flows beneath the ash on an island in the sky.