the skin sack (recursion)

I know not where the primordial matter in the skin sack I’m in intends to go . . .

I do know that I’m doing the best that I can.

I know despoilment. 

I know the essence of genetic complication, mental aberration, violence & determinism—and something of love.

I know (also) the smothering of love.

I know I strive to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.

I know I’ve made it this far and will continue to journey without destination.

I know that my father was a sick man. So I changed my name. The world did not need two of us ambulating about.

I know the plodding zombies sing for me . . . chick, chick, chickee!

I know the drug affixed itself to my hypothalamus in such a pathologically profound manner that all was vasovagal episodes—clunked skulls, sprained necks, fractured nose, bruised face. Now I can wear a Connie Banko macramé string bikini everywhere.

I know he didn’t really believe that everyday, in every way, he felt better, better and better. But if he said it enough and scotch taped it everywhere (bathroom mirror, steering wheel, et al.) it just might stick. 

I know it didn’t. 

I know recursion.

I know the fated mandible that works the soursop fruit into juice prefers to call it guanábana.

I know you’re everywhere that I’m not.

I know the particulate matter I breathed in today made its way 3,000 miles to the east.

I know the blood red clouds on the horizon are darkening. 

I know my father’s name was not really his name, but something petitioned from an imagined past. He bequeathed to me a name rich in penury.

I know truancy of will. 

I know the dark lower region that is human flailing.

I know I was scolded for lacking ambition.

I know exaltation.

I know the crack of a belt—the rise of the welt from the belt buckle hot.

I know hands forced onto a hot stove burner.

I know I often humored father, including the time I allowed him to take me to a spiritualist that cleansed my aura by laying hands, speaking in tongues, and rubbing a frozen cow’s heart down the length and breadth of my body.

I know the bounds of love.

I know the placement of a hand on a balcony railing 16 storeys above is freighted with nuance and intention.

I know the bounds of dejection.

I know my father once drove a bus full of people while stoned on LSD. He said the horizon line shifted to vertical at the apex of a bridge.

I know I believed him.

I know he died a forgetful and lonely death.

I know I intend not to follow.

I know not how this ends for all of us.

(But) I know it doesn’t end well.

What I’m Reading:

Last night I dreamt that a swan was
sucking jade-dew from my fingers. With
eyes wide open I saw thousands of little
deaths, pooling.

— Réka Nyitrai / “I asked the Night to breathe into my mouth”