Why do people find themselves sovereign?
We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one. "NOTEBOOKS," VOLTAIRE
99 tiles shatter on the floor. To be careful is to be bound, a senseless, self-inflicted harm upon the body is to be hypervigilant of the self relative to others. Are you determined to fight against your ego developing? Are you afraid of getting wet?
home tiles 38-51 tiles 52-63tile 38: mein herz. the belt is cool against my back. leather is much like a balm in the sticky sweltering summer. my eyes are rimmed red. i dont have the energy anymore. i am saddened that my belt is hogging the bed.
it lays sprawled out on the better, cushy side of the bed. in a letter to parliament i write that they should keep museums forever. in a letter to my dog i write itd be ok if he got rid of his collar after i die. he wags his tail and licks my face and i smile. in a letter to the oak tree behind my house i write that i hope it does not itch. would its branches help it out then? the belt is cool against my back. dont belts deserve lives too. i hope every belt buckle and wallet chain and mirror is happy with its circumstances. i hope every bill and prescription bottle and ceramic geisha is happy with its circumstances. its hard to glassblow in the sticky sweltering summer.
the 39th tile asks you if you know what you're doing. do you think if you just tell everyone what they are thinking then it'll go away? even if you tell on yourself you can't rid yourself of the rot that sticks to you. slimy, sticky, film that shows that even if you're afraid you look like an attention seeker, a fraud, a liar, a loser, a failure, if you say it before anyone else can, it doesn't go away. wouldnt it be better to confront your own behaviour and change. if you know and are worried you're making a mistake and do it anyway you just tell us about you instead of be someone self-aware and accountable
if it seems so then how can you course correct. if it looks like it how can you change it. if you are so tired and so guilty so remorseful and repenting for your actions for the way you're perceived then why do you persist so in the perception you hate so much? in the one that makes you feel so. why not choose your life
the refusal to change when you know better is slow suicide
tile 40 is about the life outside.
outside in the spring, after the rain of april and right before the growing heat of the end of may, the pastures are greener. in the organic alive world everything is moving like they told you they would. cicadas cry out to the world like newborn babies fresh out the womb of soil. beneath the tree in the shade lies someone who admires the rolling hills and rare, freeing breaths of breeze from the stratosphere. the tree grows peaches, heavy and ripe and glisteningly orangeish pink. peaches so ripe and abundant they bruise just by you holding them. they're so beautiful that it's fragile now. handle with care.
you aren't promised a perfect life. you're promised a tender one. with dirt under your nails and butterflies landing on your hat. you're promised a basket full of strawberries and the salt of ocean air, crisp and clear, swelling around you. you're promised sand between your toes, fruit from trees, smiles so hard they hurt. more blades of grass than people on earth, more freckles on her face than stars in the night sky. the peaches are ripe but the residue begs for ants. what matters is if you throw it all away or wash it instead
about that huge megalonyx that went extinct far before it was even found
the belief that nature is fixed and that it is already complete is melancholic. the idea that such a massive creature simply going extinct was inconceivable to the minds of enlightenment era men is only terrifying because it meant that they believed that it was impossible—the concept that life was not solid. it meant that it could change and was malleable but surely, such a wondrous and interesting creature is not lost forever. to confront the loss of an entire species was to swallow a bleak truth: that maybe perhaps nothing was ever truly set in stone. nothing was ever fixed or 'ours.'
to jefferson it likely felt like a personal failing that he could not find any extinct animal to be still alive. that the world was in fact able to be destroyed on quite a minute level. a rotting from the inside out, a notion that proved that the men like georges buffon were correct and right about american degeneracy—that these animals vanished not by any natural order but by humanity, that the very continent they set foot upon was rotten and incoherent. he didn't ask lewis and clark to look for the ground sloth out of naivety but rather because if it had gone extinct it implies creation wasn't harmonious, eternal, complete. it broke his ideology; nature was irregular and at times irrational, and enlightenment deism's tenets surrounding nature at the time were wrong. and if one brick falls...
but how could he have been wrong? the world isn't already complete and everything isn't already decided? it meant much more than an animal going extinct, it meant that maybe also they are completely wrong about our own singularity. maybe all these megafauna disappearing meant that what we called america was wrought with animals yet to be found and gone with the wind. it isn't really a new world, is it?
it wasn't full of abundance it was just land and such an irreversible loss wasn't just about earth, either. it meant that a whole universe could diminish, perhaps even on an infinitesimal level. that sloth surely isn't the only thing gone. what has left since we arrived?
it is inherent to want things to be the same. there is a comfort in knowing the world around you is safe and complete, that everything that has, will, or is, is forever in the state of rational and finished. that your only purpose, really, that can mean anything is to explore and catalog everything possible within your lifespan. for an animal to disappear begged the question, if the sloth isn't finished, what else isn't?
anything can happen, theories have been thrown around to how this animal went extinct. but still, something irretrievable, simply gone, was less about the why and more about the what. what does it mean to go extinct? are you still extinct even if you are known? even if you have your own taxonomy? even if they assigned you a genus, a kingdom, a family? when do you cease to exist in entirety
expecting a consistency in nature, and by extension, the world around you, is always going to be an expectation built only upon the clinging of safety and comfort. they finally proved a negative: the animal is gone. what's next?
unity of place
the stage never represents more than one country
never more than one house
the men stay still under the same gum tree
kicking rocks, imagining a harvest mouse
they never exist past the stage, only for afternoon tea
and calm nights on script, but not this rhyme
the hourglass is finished and the time is up
the action took place within twenty-four hours, sugar-free
but the lawyer still charges a fee
for the men all stepped on
and served as punch
the half lidded stupor
i dream of the train demolishing me
the warming occurring globally on my body
the knowledge of being gross, adulterated
i am apologetic only to the greenery around
the conservatory's architecture
the houses with overgrown lawns
signs saying no trespassing
and the big skyscrapers one street down
the way you hurt me
in ways i cannot know, sense, articulate
the extrasensory, ultraviolet
psychological attack
i dream of the train demolishing
the warming occurring globally
the knowledge
the greenery around
the knowing look
i think you know that i know / that you would like it if i liked you that way / i can and have and thought i always would / but i can sense when i am mocked / i don't want the equalitarian dynamic! / but i can smell when you'd like it / i can take pictures of you and collect your hair / i can slobber over you, pathetic wet dog / but i can taste that you'd like it / and that really repels me! / wearing my finest lederhosen and / you crack the peitsche and i skip / scheiße! i get no sense of lieb haben from / loving someone who would like it if i loved them / verstohlen, leidenschaftlich, wehleidig / i know that knowing look! / you'd like it, me, humiliated, the 'welpe' / me as well, but you like it übermäßig
tile 45 talks about growing pains. tile 45 is a revolving bookshelf.
five books leave no room for complaint
you adjust the tension of the strings
i turn and shift, attention and maintenance
neonatal are my gears
pubescent is the oil
adulthood through building, inventing is
extrajudicial and familial
right before poincaré, after newton
a cipher is just the new age parenting style
a disk with the alphabet stares at you
a set of code will always be in use
you hold what you can hold
what comes after
nothing but combinational logic
tile 46
Jesus, I wonder, can you feel the ground?
Curling down on your spine
Alone with your thoughts, silence is the sound
Jesus, are you scared?
Can your blood curdle with fear?
Do you see what's up ahead? 40 days you have not fared.
Did Jesus in Gethsemane feel valiant or failed?
Praying to who listened, hands clasped and shaking
Knowing now just what the world entailed
Jesus, I wonder, can you feel the sin?
Bestowed upon you through only the obedience taught
Jesus, I wonder, did you want any kin?
Jesus, is it heavy?
A weight digging into your shoulders
Jesus, are you saddened at what God chose to levy?
The cup does not pass to anyone else, drink
For what good is perfection, sinlessness
Without temptation? Without perseverance? Indelible ink.
But it still burns and hurts, does it not?
A fiery blade piercing into your chest
The world shows you to be tested, can your faith be wrought?
Jesus, I wonder, whose flesh are you?
Bone of whose bone, flesh of whose flesh?
Do you grieve your own life? Do you seek what is true?
Pleading to Him, that if there be another way...
Not out of cowardice, you kept your courage while timorous
A selfless ask, no demand of any kind, is what you pray
For what good would it be to carry the depraved
When you are not challenged? When you are not afraid?
A sacrifice made, Lamb of God, collect the saved
Jesus, do you miss your friends?
You are just, you are kind, but Jesus, I wonder
Did you cry on that cross? Could you smell the wood?
An earthly affliction you must have felt, heart torn asunder
At the thought of your father, your mother.
THE DEVIL IN THE COURTROOM
How did it feel?
To be chained down to the floor by your foot. To be wearing a bright orange jumpsuit in front of ravenous media crews, all wanting to get a look at just what the headlines told them they’d find. The monster, the villain, the unearthly, out-of-his-mind criminal. A masterful yet decadent portrayal of just the person you were.
And oh, you could be so many people.
The man who’d make idle conversation with store employees / The man who lured and snared / The man who could charm just about anyone in a bar / And slice their throats open, too / The man who claimed himself to be an atheist, and slipped down the path of satanism / Who would turn and face God once more, as the dust settled / And who hung up pictures of men and surrealist art on his walls / With boarded-up windows, and picked-at, chipping paint / The man with a collection of VHS tapes and DVDs of movies and home videos / And yet couldn’t cherish good times, who always wanted a quick fix / The man who couldn’t strike up a conversation to save his life / Yet could so elegantly speak, as though he made the language / But had no friends, not a single connection in such a world, and fled to fantasy / But had so many people throw a good word in for him when the time came.
You were a thousand men in one, because you didn’t know yourself.
A parasitic lifestyle was what came natural, and it’s only an eye for an eye.
The people you met were not people, not because they never were, but because if they were, and you got close enough to touch, they would not turn to gold, no, they’d disintegrate.
The touch of the Devil, whom I have sympathy for, even in this courtroom, was your touch. You were the Devil all along, and I played into your hand as though I was made for it.
But if you knew me, I know you could not do a thing. I would become a human in your mind, a human in your world, and a human in your eyes.
The people you met were people, but if you knew that, you couldn’t jump at their throats, or charm your way into their pants or minds, no, they became objects as you pleased.
A parasitic lifestyle is what you wanted, and maybe you could’ve wanted differently.
You were a thousand men in one, until I knew just who you were.
So how did it feel?
To bleed out on the floor, feeling your heart in tandem with blood pumping out. To have pent-up, insatiable rage enacted on you just as you did on others. Did you think it was poetic justice? Who was more genuine, your corpse or your media appearances? Who will be there when you die? Who do you hope to see? A raw, grisly portrayal of just the man you will be.
And oh, you were nobody, at the end of it all.
Nobody, / Nobody, despite it all / Nobody, in death / Nobody, no matter how much you tried / Nobody, against everything you did / Nobody, in the media / Nobody, as always / Nobody, as it should be / Nobody, and maybe it’s for the better / Nobody, the very thing you feared / Nobody, was it worth it? / Nobody, despite all your satisfaction / Nobody, together with your family / Nobody, even with your lawyers / Nobody, when the time came.
a requiem to remember me
we were in rome, a kind of delicate little building
i was gazing into the river, the water swirling into a turquiose blue
you loved the way the sun refracted and
you turned to me and said
"it reminds me of the vanity"
we were in two different cities in britain, kilometres away
you wrote to me and said
"how far along is your mother?"
i wrote back, my pen drooling
"she's fine, due soon"
and we met up again just to meander
we were in middle america, and i asked you
how many times will we keep doing this and
you turned to me and said
as long as you remember me
tile 49 is about something so indelible yet purged just as swiftly
my second chance at life i feel comes to me like blood flows to the brain
a thousand second chances given like i've never had another
the automaton i call a body refills on oil; my pacemaker is my mother
we turn to the sunbeam and sit, await the hurricane
widespread misery and flattened sugarcane
they tell me all about it when i get home
thoughts tick by in my mechanical mighty metronome
we share a kiss and you leave me with a ticket to the train
the mark you leave on me is the same you leave on the carpet
it's the same you leave on the fine china, the one you leave on the sheets
you leave it on the future that we had in the past
"The Word of the Day is Yearn"
In the days after we dueled, you were gone.
I thought I would have the quiet I wanted. No longer would I suffer that red-haired politically irrelevant firebrand. The rest of my term as vice president could be earwig-free. But you're gone and I still love you.
They say you fired into the sky. You didn't—aiming at the tree behind me, disturbing some birds. Provoking me. A peacock even in death. I felt satisfied when it was over. I got to boast, I came out on top, I won, and yet.
And yet when your wife cried over what I'd done I still took your gloves. They fit my hands.
I wonder what else of yours would have fit me. Should I have backed down? Retracted that letter... No. Your insistence on semantics brought us here. Drove me to such lengths. You tended to drive me crazy. You tended to give me something to do.
You were gone. Who was I to tussle with now? You're gone. You're gone and I still love you. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone. You're gone.
Maybe if I had read less Voltaire,
doc martens
it is world war one. i am an infantryman, battered and bloody.
traversing through the muddy, rainy frontlines onto an empty portion with a wooden house, of which i presume to be a medical structure, i collapse. my boots are nearly ankle-deep in mud.
i have been stabbed. the blood which had previously been steadily pouring out of me is now blocked by mud. my dark green uniform turns a weird brownish as it mixes in sanguinal stains and whatever else.
i am not face-first in mud. more like my head is turned to the side, giving me only a view of my hand, flat. i sink slowly as my weight settles. no thoughts occur, no emotions are felt.
someone's boots squelched underfoot and stopped at my head. i turn my gaze to look at the void and it looks back at me too. the void is wearing the same uniform as i and holds a small, modified rifle in its left hand. my head pools with warm nothingness as the mud under me gives way like wet paper. the something's boots dip in too.
the ground crumples and tears away soppily. there is nothing i fall into, the zero-g white expanse reveals itself to the something and i. reorienting myself to look at the nothing, glancing upward to see the ground above me.
am i dead, i ask. my words coming out wobbly and watery, underwater in the invisible anti-oxygenated white absence. the something doesn't respond, its obsidian, uniform-donned body blinks and twitches. blurs of colour emerge from the nothing. like lens blur or motion sickness, rothkoesque smudges reveal themselves to me as 2D rooms to immerse myself in. the new envelope is red and black, geometric and messy.
i am told nothing in the nothing. and the something waves me goodbye
home tiles 38-51 tiles 52-63
