SPIRAL
SISYPHUS
So the goodness inside you said “I shall manifest godhood, Not to ascend into divinity, But to display an unbroken, Equalizing reality.” So the man you were said “I shall be the man I create myself to be And there will be no end to him Even in death Unless I am no longer as I am.”
So the first son said “Be endless in me.”
ASURA
So the atrocity inside you said _THE FUNCTION IS NOT COMPLETE_ CANNOT BE COMPLETE_ WILL NEVER BE COMPLETE_ SO WHO HAS NEVER BLED MUST WEEP UNTIL THEIR SCLERAS BURN RED_ AND WHO HAS SHED SWEAT MUST BE ALLOWED TO DIE QUIETLY_ _BUT THE SACRIFICE IS ALWAYS VIOLENT_
So the man you were becoming said /// the creation i want is not endless and i have seen it throttled with hands i shouldn’t recognize ///
So the first daughter said “You are absolved in me.”
FREE ME FROM HELL
I must rest, the man said. It is not your sabbath, the children said. And yet there is no good godhood, the man responded in his head.
SYMPHONY
“Sin is the oracle of the wicked in the depths of his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.” —Psalm 36:1
Simplicity. Define it. Lack of complication? No. Lack of bad data? No. Existence is junk numbers. Simplicity is An eye wrapped around a needle seeing its blood for the first time. Because when people bleed they become predictable. Reset. Because when people bleed they become data. Reset. Because when people bleed the bad numbers drip into the blood and what’s left for cleanup is maybe a malediction but curses can be swallowed whole. Simplicity is I won’t tell you how You break down Because every syllable spoken Is a lost eternity. I won’t tell you How you break. Simplicity is the chance to think on something like godhood and how it doesn’t apply to the spoken word. Simplicity is
“… all he says is deceitful and wise, and he has turned his back on Simplicity.” —No one
SORCERER
GLORIFY THIS FALSE IDOL
If you use a pretty pink marker to highlight the word reality and press it to your tongue right after do you taste what it means to be a maker? What do they call having an even pinker tongue? Something made unnatural, maybe.
[And you might be able to redact your names from the minds of would-be worshippers]
[And you might be able to redact your mind from the eyes of perception inside]
If you peel off all the skin and unwind every muscle and shed every ounce of flesh will you still be called by a word that you can recognize?
RECOGNIZE THIS FALSE IDOL
or just pretend to
RETRIEVER
You were never told to understand that you were born to wait. Wait for the right moment to breathe. Wait for the right moment to see when the day will raze you. Wait for the right moment to turn your cheek because when you are struck you must wait to be struck once more. You were never told to understand that you were born to be replaced. You were never told to understand that the key to sacrifice was to make sure blood always runs wet lest someone have the chance to clean the altar— then they’d have to start again. No, the altar you were offered upon was intended to keep its stains. You were never told to understand that worlds existed beyond your fathoming: that people existed to break people who weren’t you.
HAIL THE DEATH OF THIS OLD LIFE FOR IT IS TIRED BEYOND ITS YEARS
Yet people break so easily when their heads no longer know how to connect to their bodies.
HAIL THE DEATH OF THIS OLD LIFE FOR IT HAS YEARS ENOUGH TO DIE NOW
You have much to fathom now, like the fact that you were born. And that may be harder to reckon with than things more horrible.
HAIL THE DEATH OF THIS OLD LIFE AND THE BIRTH OF SOMETHING THAT MIGHT LIVE ON TOMORROW
STALKER
And In A Whisper Of A Dream —A Whisper Of Reality— RA Said Unto Thee To Speak
Speak something and it will become the past. Speak something and you will breathe out a memory. Not something that matters, but a thing you can hold between your lips.
you were making a world once when you were too young to be responsible for the meaning. you were making a world once when you could remember what it was to be beholden to your own head.
RA SAID UNTO THEE SPEAK BEFORE YOU FORGET
you were breaking your world once when you were too old to be trusting enough to let it live. you were breaking a world once when you had forgotten what it was to be quiet in mortality.
Do Not Speak Lest The Words Turn Into Omens. Do Not Speak Lest The Words Fail To Turn Into Omens. Do Not Speak. RA Will Never Be Anything Unto You.
maybe you were meant to devour that which shouldn’t exist and incorporate it into your corpse
Corpse: The thing you shall one day be reduced to
You: A singular experience trying to expand
Devour: What you do to every event you indulge in
don’t stop
LA MANCHA
This story could have been true, because I once was a redeemer. / Not of people. / I didn’t know how to take a black heart and spit red blood into its arteries. / Not of people. / I didn’t know to take my red heart and wring out the black death that always tickled my veins. / I was born to be a mummified man—someone who bleeds bandages and can’t unwind them all the way. / I was born to be a redeemer. / I don’t know if I was born to live successfully. / This story could have been true, because I was once a redeemer. / Not of people, but of lives. / I bled and there was meaning in the weight of so much blood inside me if people lived. / They say people die everyday. / They don’t talk about how they live every second. /
This story could be true, because I am unending decay. / My left hand is a lover with a gun that’s been beaten into being a good shot. / My right hand is a lover in ways that might have less meaning. / I tried to love myself and found a poor suitor inside. / I tried to suffocate the shadow that holds onto my ego on my behalf. / I can’t. / I haven’t died yet. / I need to know why. / I need to see without the curse of my own eyes. / I need to know that I loved someone without pulling the trigger. / I need someone to understand the story that hasn’t been written.
This story could be true, because I am a man.