belated coward on the step
shot break of dusk
twilight receding into concrete
packed on the alley wall
cigarette ash and the suffocating mist of
a lurid breath
fade.

in a dreamlike wake
time collapses
caught in the hybrid space of
ambivalent mimicry
a traumatic double which morphs recognition
into terror.

you smile
i slip into
La Frontera
and learn to hate
myself.

slip break the sky, god’s descent, tiles in the sun.
shot gaze of desire, dead flesh, leviathan.
they play in fountains, the barren bones of king fisher.
blown white, origami unfolded.

Lily marked the gravestone. A white streak across grey cobble, the crumbling visage of a turning sky reflected in the puddle beside her. New dusk brimmed grey gold, a heady dust galloped with the rising easterly winds, a white streak across grey skies. Lily marked the edge of her notebook, nine-past-ten, the end of second period, a break in consciousness, then a tang of blood from her swollen gums. Lenin rose above the rooftops, a hand brushed her forehead as the paramedics left, a black bag.

The answer was heat death, compartmentalised energy, like fireworks falling into darkness. Burning rice, spilt coffee, Ain’s smile. Nights on counter, pad paper, day old rain. Lily fell into a nightmare, smooth black, a single light dissipating as the universe died. She spat blood, missed the bus and collapsed on the walk to school.

It was the anniversary. Setting sun, plumes of white, the exit sigh of a wasted day. Lily woke hours later. She returned to an empty home, suffocated in a dream and rose four hours too early for school. Climbing the roof, she watched the sun rise, grey and formless.

There was ash in the hallway to class, the remnants of the incense from yesterday’s memorial, pencil shavings from the forest, fingers blurring out of definition like the trees around her, the soft empty breath of loose soil. Ain came to the store on a night like this, wind gathered silent around her frame. They found themselves atop a bus shelter, lights rising from a sea of nothingness.

Eight-forty-five, the chalk felt heavy in Lily’s hand, white dash across infinity, city blackout. Everyone went to see the dam, cracked pavement, Ain dripping blood, Lily wreathed in ravens. Below the river, forest spirits wove among power lines, bird bones cracked beneath the soles of children, motes rose. Lily lost sight of Ain, the dam broke and children cheered.

Time passed. Ceaseless time.

Lily drifted through petroleum smoke, dashi, the burning husks of gods. She watched the river ryū sweep through her street, turbid with the broken heads of graves, mad with phantoms. She visited memories yet to form, nurseries of dust, cosmic return of the infinite perceiving itself. She cried, remembering everything, the smell Ain’s wet hair, ricochet of a glass bottle, Lenin’s dirt-smeared skin, the birth and death of the universe; mother unable to afford pad paper, sakura bursting the sky pink, couples riding past on too expensive bikes, father drunk on sake. Ribbons of light danced around Lily, a playful susurration, feeding her more and more memories.

Isn’t it beautiful? Existence burning through itself? A departure with no ending, no beginning, no becoming? Haven’t you lived a full life? Won’t you live it again?

Lily screamed. Split dam flooded the empty grave. The same smell of soy, dust and sweat every day. Lack birthed in the space between, like teeth, lacuna bleeding. Nightmares and old memories pouring out like a knife. Ryū stiffened, red streak across the sky, tail burying into the earth. Rice steam filled the air, a passing train carried Ain and Lily into the city, crowds of smoke, her crescent eyes reflected in a storefront, the eyes her mother loved. April awakening of the forest gods, cool spring rustled the hair around her neck, a humid breath descended from the mountain to the lake. Warm rain fell in sheets, city smudged out of focus, bokeh lights departing, Ain’s wet skin—

The city retracted; a whimper escaped her mouth; her fingers passed through power lines, wood smoke, pavement; seasons collapsed, superimposed like holograms, snow and humus; gyoza steamed, air sirens blared beneath the shadow of foreign planes; kodama rose as ancient trees reclaimed the land; volcanic blasts shook the ocean, AI sped to singularity; reality vanished like light falling off a mirror and Lily ceased to feel.

Space is illusory.

Lily.

It travels ceaselessly through itself.

Lily, stop.

And we don’t exist.

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, squirming on the ground. “Lily, stop!”

Lily grinned, rising from the reeds, a cattail in each hand. She sped towards a screaming Ain, who tripped on a willow root, and began bopping relentlessly.

“Lily!” Ain cried, grabbing Lily’s wrists. “Haven’t we done this enough?”

They keep the air cold to slow the spread. A pale light draws you into existence, a bloom of city smoke and glass. I watch the shadow of your wrist thin as the sun dies. You turn your head away.

Everything thins. Houses shrink. Streetlamps burst. Organs wither. I walk for hours along the wharf. Rain trickles through broken windows and falls into the black harbour. Dust clots the waterways. Skin sheds.

The problem is you were born human. Turned away, you obliterate.

A woman swears at her crying child. She pulls his arm violently. Existence floods the air. A miasma of confusion, fear and hatred. The mirror turns outwards.

You rise with your bed. A fold in a sea of whiteness. It was your spine, they said. The thing holding you together. It was disintegrating, flattening to infinity.

There is nothingness. A flood of it. A pitiless swell that never ends and threatens to crush the world with every breath. Bated wait in a heart white as bone.

Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of reality. Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of reality. Years pass. The loop breaks and I reform it. You lie in a bed of stone. You sink beneath the nothingness of—

The IV fluid is imaginary. So is the taste of cold water beneath your tongue. It is a fractal world. A reality formed from a fragmented possi—haven’t I written this before?

There is a traffic accident. I am not there and neither are you. They pull you out of the wreckage, smoke rising from your chest, breast alight with hatred. You gaze at me, a stranger, and I break into shards, each one capturing you like a memento, a death drive.

Ash falls from the sky. I gaze up until I am blind. I reach my hand out and find the neck pulse of the earth. I find you.

I sit in the common room. I shuffle through pieces of myself. There is nothing here but you. Where am I? Where the **** am I? Where is the nothingness between you and I? Someone addresses me. I look up and find myself incapable of speech. I reach out but my arm fails to follow. I listen but cannot catch a word. The bell rings but you aren’t here. I look down. The pieces reflect nothing.

Reality collapses. Hypodermic crash to the libidinal economy. Desire and lack the same. Anticathexis sublimates into worthless ******* words on a document. Wren bursts black particles across the pavement, like cancerous soma running fingers through a spinal column. You smile. I sink. I sink.

The mind is sick with existence. Ganglia, myelin, dendritic sprawls. It all functions. It all works too well. Purpose, connection, reaction. I envy you. I *******—

Winter is here, bright, empty winter, almond grey and silent.

are we just remembering?
mobius unravelled;
the universe in origami death.

[act one, a crossing in Akihabara]
lights blur, hands shift, flesh, pockets of smoke
cyberia, the world moves like radio fuzz, no purpose
wires swell, words leak, *akane, tokyo-3
before a neural blackout hits—

existence is like
a flat sheet of paper
time folds
in infinite ways.

[act two, cyberia, a thousand years in the future]
children play tag.

The frame has blurred away \ Fever death arising like burst glass || mangled spines \ This is the age of fact | where the violent insertion of cancer cells into animals is applauded by scientists across the globe \ Objectivity is the new face of barbarism | death god // sublimating existence for truth \ Raw data filters from the rot of deformed limbs | tweezers crush the heads living fish // guts spill | formaldehyde fixes the flesh of squirming insects | spliced genes splay the spines of mewling mice \ There’s no doubt || biology is the practice of death \ Animals without niches \ Organs without bodies \ Cells without hosts \ An aperture maw | red // yellow // black // white | leaking nervous tissue over an absent whole \ Reality has been atomised // brutalised // banalised \ Objective knowledge replacing all critical thought << [[Muscle // nerve // fat // blood // bone ]] Experience nothing \ [[The germ cell cycles every 28 days ]] Know nothing \ [[The average lifespan of a lab rat is three years ]] Feel nothing \ [[Over one hundred million are killed yearly ]] Science saves \ Biospace severed // prescription drugs fall // epistemic // into clean white bottles \

strands of hair, half-remembered
the sun has shrunk to bone.

light across a bedroom floor
spread brittle, held, lost.

this world deserves nothing
acre lit.

nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing.