thee istsfor manity reader

Phosphene Dream (redux)

He produced phosphenes that smelled of mandarin oranges — a strange synesthetic effect that followed the orange-rimmed yellow spots that exploded in his closed-eye vision.

He thought this was an improvement on the phosphenes of his youth that smelt of rotting meats and animal carcasses, and filled his nights with monstrous nightmares.

He finally felt like an adult. He thought he’d arrived at the happiest point of his life, but he felt his brand was in peril. Only the whip smartest YouTubers and TikTok’ers could make the scene, and his phosphenes were falling behind.

So he really pressed down hard on his eyes this time and they fell into the center of his head, down his sinuses, and mysteriously into his esophagus, and through his digestive tract.

His vision was something spectacular now — 12K Supreme! It was like a Haight Ashbury psychedelic oil light show at a Grateful Dead concert, c. 1966 — every time another enzyme, bile, or gastric acid washed over his eyes making their way through this world of gastrointestinal wonder — phosphenes like he’d never seen before exploded through his eyeless head — sending bright yellow sparks out of his vacant eyeholes.

Hey, it blew him away.

And when the peristalsis finally evacuated his eyes into the depths of his own rectum— the time was now! Now he knew he’d be the supreme influencer to all mankind.

He tapped out a telegraph to his mother: “Success, Mother! I’m finally in my own rectum and about to be born again!”

What I’m Reading:

“There was a saint once, tenth
century, who suggested
we do nothing but look into our own hearts and say what we see there. I see
fear, hope, despair, and need.”

— Jim Moore / “Admit It”

Marginal

1.
I found the box of photos & letters
you said
please destroy my letters

2.
Particularly the ñ’s
the rr’s (the rolled
r’s) and the x’s
that sound of
j’s

3.
I found a shard of your umbilical
cord pressed
between two
yellowing balls
of cotton

4.
You were missing
teeth in some
of the early
photos

5.
Some photos had dates
Aug. ‘65, Jun. ‘66, printed
on the margins

6.
Your marginal life
at those marginal
moments in the gloaming

7.
your face in shadow

8.
your right hand
caught in the last
ray of light

9.
Another photo
you looked
into the distance beyond
the stranger taking
the picture

10.
You bracketed by parents
all of you lacking air
strangled by fear

11.
Why take a picture
then

12.
Why this
moment

13.
Why the strangled
umbilicus?

What I’m Reading:

“As an atheist I don’t have particularly strong opinions about God’s preferred pronouns. However, I do have strong opinions about how language shapes the way we see our world.”

— Arwa Mahdawi / “The Week In Patriarchy”