Somehow
don’t listen to me. i’m a ball of nerves. i’m a pack of lies. i’m a forgotten never-was, lying at the back of your cupboard, the words you might whisper into discarded tissues, before throwing them carelessly from car windows, to skip on the breeze and fall foul of an oncoming face. On falling and firing, whispered words can get lost in the wind.
Why are you so calm? How are you so serene? For the past days I have been starving for energy to rise from being more than a listless mess of stinging cells, bashing about together, confusedly. Where is the direction?
Again last night, I saw your shadow gently imprinting footprints onto my thoughts. You distrubed the delicate chemical balance of brains the world over and caused television screens to rattle to life and broadcast the same message on them. The weight of a kilogramme has decreased by the weight of a fingerprint. I had the feeling you were stealthily stealing through nights the world over, and your fingers were carefully and skillfully taking the prints away. You’d never believe me, no matter how it could be said. But I know that it was you.
You’re responsible for all the magic that’s been flying in the air recently. I know we can’t speak of what happens when we fall from the safe ledge of sleep and into the other world, but next time…next time i might even bring a torch so i can secretly skip behind your feet as they tread water through greylined cloud.
I just have one simple request, next time. Next time. Maybe the next time. Maybe all the previous versions of yourself should not shatter into one if others come near. Maybe one day, next time, perhaps, we will spend the time with some simple glue, or even sellotape, if you like, and create an angular monster from the small pieces and fragments we find that have chipped off, along the way. Glue them and stick them and plaster them into a tall creature, demurely accepting its being as the fabric of dreams, of nightmares, of people. People who don’t want to be like this, or like that, any more.
Even give it a name. Affix wheels to its large base, fit it with a collar and chain and take it for walks along the rickety streets, parading down hills, around built-up bends smelling of rubbish and vomit and Saturday Morning in Soho. Everyone will be proud. This is what they didn’t want us to be - all of us that is, not just you and not just me - a collection of the discarded parts. Sewn and hammered and juxtaposed and crammed into a new form.
And think of the glee we could share, to push it into the deep end from a diving board, and watch the screaming vulturous offspring paw over it, shattering it…slowly being infected, one by one…
…and back to the start. and back to the beginning, to the end, to the miracles, to the sights gazed at upon the way and the wrenching displacement at the end. And begin again. To stay, to go, to leave, to return.
This time, when I leave, tell me not to go. Tell me not to come back. Tell tales of mystery and dream and excuse yourself from any reprehensible argument and time and space and….
excusing yourself into nowhere, once more.
i know where you are. please find me.
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