This is a body made of dirt and the breath of the gods.
This is a body that inhabits and is inhabited.
It is a body that fails and disobeys.
It is a body that is exhausted and void.
It is a body that I tire of despising.
This is a body that all the sea monsters vie for.
It is not a body of flesh and bones.
It is a mirror of meaning.
A mirage of expectation.
The building blocks of strange thinking structures
That I always borrow but never ask for.
And I am asked incessantly: what, who, why?
I look to the gods but they are the reflection of my heated head.
These questions are the only language I understand, but I cannot speak it.
So I can only despair at my illegibility.
For I am society, therefore this I must endure.
That is only when I feel the beast that is the syntactic subject rage inside me.
Otherwise, I am nothing and everything in existence, precisely because I never was content with it.
I am a conglomerate of dying stars.
I am the child of debris and chaos.
The riddance of the universe.
I came from the last remaining blossom in the darling abyss.
I am an amalgamation of stolen kisses from forgotten lovers,
Dispersed in the whispers.
And when the mighty heralds of heaven will call out my name, the sun will hide behind the moon -not in cowardice but in wonder. The two are often confused.
All the stars in the sky will sing to me their sweet nothings, a breeze in the wind, a crease on the water. But despite the warm welcome I will scream and weep and despair. For my questions will remain unanswered. My thirst unquenched. My mind unemptied.
Nothing escapes the golden gates of Eden. Much less my poor, confined thoughts.
How to exist in this vast jungle of concrete, pollution and hurry? How to speak the language of trade and those dead green leaves of the gilded copper? How to conform?
Impossible.
When my soul is made of rose petals, and my palms destined to clutch the sword of the mind. When my heart beats to the melodies of the poets, to the bang of controversy. When my eyes feast satisfactorily on no delight but the sight of nature's children; they revel in her blooming arms, they lie resting on her spring gown.
I know deep inside. Like I know that the sun rises and sets. Like I know there is darkness and light. My hunger will never be satiated if every day it is forced to the smallness of mediocrity. It craves the sweetness of the ordinary, but never the banality of the mediocre.
A body is a double-sided coin; Oizys and Eros are caught in a great celestial battle for it, and everytime one delivers a fatal blow, the coin flips, and the winning god boasts. Do not bother asking me whom I cheer for. I do not know this sound; I am not familiar with feeling. I only root for the end to come, that is all.
Today I woke up to the sound of a thousand screams, and it reminded me of the pleasure I found in your arms. The curve of your hips against mine. Our hands brushing as lightly as possible, yet the heavens shook with alarm every time. I still recall my nails digging into my palm – the only restraint they could hope for, to refrain from leaping forward and brushing your soft sun-kissed hair. From running along the lines of lips I longed on mine. Our laughs and groans as you reached over to silence the sirens. Each one louder than the next, pushing me out of my lethargy.
Only today I remain trapped inside, as I have been for a while, locked away by my memories.
A body is hatred, malice, and pain. I stared into the tear-stained glass again today, because despite or because of my humanness, I like to suffer. Each smear on the cracked surface was a dark blot of fateful ink.
A child meets my eyes, but I am at peace with it by now. I know her, and I hate it. Porcelain-faced, rosy cheeked. She stares and I look. She looks and I stare. In the glow of the crackling fire, I catch a glimpse of cracks and dents on her skin. Movements caught in crystal kaleidoscope, glowing white snow against black crooked lines. The light is an ancient trickster, the oldest foe of the Gods. But I listen to its wisdom.
The child stares and I look. My heart clenches. The golden dagger pierced in its center twisting and pinching and feasting away on the beating flesh. The blood trickles to my hands but I don't feel it. The numbness has engulfed me. A layer of lethal protection around my decaying body. "What have you done?" "What have you done to us?"she whispers. Her words dry out. The air steals them and tucks them away in her nest. An invisible hand tears the dagger from my chest and plunges it into hers. I watch silently as she bleeds out. As her blood turns to flames. As the air returns for the ashes. Graceful as always, she swirls them back to her lair: a perennial warning for the next child that dares to perceive its consciousness. Cogito ergo sum, sed hic esse non potes si cogites. Cogitare periculosum est, sic machinam cogitationem perdere: corpus!
There is an important difference between being alive and feeling alive. Being a vessel and being an organism. We are the living, but how many are actually just surviving?
I am a hall of mirrors, yet no reflection is the same. What is this bodily curse? Where I scream in silence to a crowd in the void. My vocal cords torn in a perfect half before I was even a whole myself.
I cannot afford to have dreams anymore in this body. It is the only thing that moves forward. Come now, we must wave it goodbye!
There was some little thing I meant to say. Some impertinence which I couldn’t be rid of. It’s another day of the grandiose chase between me and Expression. Look, look! The body runs but it is slow, still wounded.
In the end was I to be a lullaby to the drunks? A mischievous glint on the water?
A thousand bells rang that fateful morning. I only heard the one.
Comments