Depression is Butts

“But how?” repeated.
Because… just?

I thought for a moment. Fading landscapes in tar.
Bubbling, burning impressions. Light melted cellulose frames.

The horizontal space masked above. The space continues and draws forth.
Nodding visuals when questioned. The smell of old wood.

Those fibers torn and smoothed by thousands of salty fingers.
The leather gnawed by mice and insects. That musty smell lingers.

Through glass I see evidence. The question remains.
If I remember hard enough, all becomes real. Is this real?

You’re answered inline, the order received.
Calculations, or has the question finished being asked?
My hands upon the raised buttons, pressing.

Simply because.

Scrape-slap. Scrape-slap. By popular demand, the most annoying cadence.
The lungs breathe shallow. Breathing exhaust is like breathing chlorine.

Beaten and full of forgotten rain. I swim this pool to create a vortex.
These sewn nets are useless against the skin. Mosquitoes in the ear.

I meditate in the alley, my foot at the foot of bees.
Watch them come and go. Their interest is momentary. My interest is momentary.

Throw that rock. “Get a home!” cried out.
Pencils draw poorly on wetted stock.

The man of God. “Off my lawn!” cried out.
Awakened on a shooting range. Shells traumatized and confused, in small piles.
I gather a few. Polish the inside with my finger.

The small valleys rise to my shoulders at night. Crickets.
Oh the infrequent aid. What kept you going?

I imagined emergence from a portal.
Gray hair and beard. Tanned, battered skin.
A man of the real. Mastered in time.

Those small stones burned into my retina. The ghost still travels.
We diverge. I have returned.

This dreary shadowy space.

The door is sealed.
It opens and closes in mind. No actual movement.
Black and white trimmings.

The uncleaned sheets matted with dust and oil.
The half moon faces directionless.
The open bottle. Cold glass. Endless rim.

Notice those small things now. A fray of fabric. A hair on the looking eye.
The mirror shows backwards truth and you see delusion.
Numb reluctance.

“All mothers go to heaven” spoke of madness.
The shaken hand is tossed aside.

Given up potential, from the wrist.
All contribution.

Weighted paper without ink. Sins recorded.
Time is lost through exhaustion and tears.

From one cell, through miracle, through improbability.
Your mother and your father.
Ancestors turning in stone.
Gone.

 

Lose everything. Identity.
The infinite pages between sheets. Divided.
This life. This life.

Are you prepared? This breath at last. Another?
This autonomy. Faded monsters.

Loose the umbilical. Slip into the galactic noise.
Can this be returned?

This ego falls. Deeper.
This character on the moon. Stars spinning.
These false numbers written in powder. How can I trust this light?

The skeptical memory fades and swoons. This pencil between the eye.
I ask not your beg, and pardon not why.
The star stuff torn apart and swirling years.

Ah, those lungs still course. Bones in hand.
Clay under the nails and the taste of tongue. Claw marks in the skull.

Escape seems impossible in awakened day.
Wet, layered paint still on the walls.

 

Stepping lively, upon this road. Movement under foot.
I felt you glance from behind. Stirring.
My face once over the shoulder.

Future. Alien. The modified scape.
Staring, our mutual eyes on this path.
Simultaneously.

Awareness merged, surely.
Can this line be crossed?

The same path, years forward. One step. Step.
There I gaze upon my past, gazing upon my future.
Aware again.

Dual feelings. Elation, delayed.
Two points separated by 5 dimensions, a line is drawn.
As surely as I gaze upon my future, and my future upon my past,
As surely as happening.

Blossoms and fades. A moment shared.

What shall we do?

 

The paths diverge. Numerous.
My death at 52. My death at 95.

While pruning trees, the bark wet and smooth, I slipped and snapped my neck.
The heavy sound in my ears, the flicker of red in my eyes.
Nothing left but slow breathing until the blanket of darkness fell.
Drowning in the cold damp earth. Countless.

A wedding, I saw their faces. Celebration.
All around their bones as dust and ash, and in their mother’s womb.
Innocent, just born. Used up, upon death.
Expectations unfulfilled. Who would hold your hand?

I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know.
Sometimes so close, a drawing in my ear. Constant.
Perception divided. Futures running parallel.

Tingling in my lower spine, a column of water without bottom.
A moment before the turn, in only red and blue.
Myself ahead, I walk the path. I walk ahead.

All paths and endings.
The void shines blinding, tormented by the knowing.
A deck of cards laid out. A choice. A path to follow. The next junction.

Time elapses grudgingly.

Your sister waits… your mother waits… your father waits…
I would have held you for as long as you wanted – given you all your favorite things,
With a small body and beating heart. Everything you did was just right.

The universe wrapped around your soul, connected directly to God.
I saw you. I met you. In the deserts with white endless sands and pitch black skies, I saw your red glowing eyes and your pink body.

You were holding your sister’s hand. The two of you were together, but there was only one. Later I saw you, a grown man. You were taller than me and going to college. I saw your light brown hair. Were your eyes brown or blue? You were smiling.

Like a phantom you lack permanence. They cut you out and placed your mortal body into the box. You came from darkness and darkness returned. Was it cold? You were so warm once. I felt my hands stretch forward, tendrils of intention reaching, reaching…

I could never reach you. A moment of Earth and sky lasting forever. I’ve lived forever between the teeth. Can not one moment be spared for you? You were cut from existence and I just wanted to hold you. I wanted to tell you that you were wanted. I just wanted you to know so badly that you were wanted. Why did you have to be alone at the end before the beginning?

You could have done nothing wrong.

 

It began with everything.
Is that missing finger a souvenir?
Are those rotten teeth a parting gift?

Pus from the infection. Covet this mass.
Can something be gained?

The nerves die. The muscles cut.
Was it everything you hoped for?

This shell wrinkled and broken. Did you win?
This mind frail and lost. Are you glad?

Those tiny fingers pulsing. This warmth.
This soft beginning. This worn leathery ending.

Have I done justice bringing you into this world?
The cycle, never broken. Forgotten entanglements.

Thankful damnation.

The cold merciless shine. The routine.

Comfort of darkness like a blanket.
The high moon.

Echoes in the night. A sharp smile.
Energized. My mind is racing!
The horizon exceeds beyond sight.

Barefoot. A step on gravel. A step on asphalt.
Damp in rain, storms surround.
Rejoice in the lightning. Baptised in the rain.

Those smells. Those sounds.
The white aura rises and smoulders. Choked by the thickness of life.
A fist in the dirt. Soft and smooth.
Blood in the rocks.

Is this the edge of sanity, or am I simply home?

These shoes grind concrete, square and heavy.
The great effort, only the greatest. Where is this promised land?

These bones curl and smoke. The effort of friction.
This load of dusk, melted into my spine. These tangled cords, spokes to my feet.

“A true genius!” Oh, yes… that one.
“So modest!” Speak the dead.

These flattened thoughts echo in space.
Misplaced, forgotten teeth line the garden. So much gnashing in the silence.

One finger thrust upward. A reminder. You told me grand and I lied.
This day forever empty by the silk, fated high upon the thread.
This inverted heart beats the completed marathon.

Wisdom reflects those flattened fore and in dulldrom marches future.
This hand as a match strikes, and I watch burning.
Centered and brief as the intentions of few. Alien and lonely the echoes forth.

Cycles of day fill my cup and drink seemingly always.
Far too acute, wishing for the intoxication of jovial oceans…