Lover

You say you love me, but how do you love a shadow on the wall? At high noon we enjoy each other, but when night draws near, you become angry as I fade into the background. Do not mistake my seeming stillness for lack of passion. What you call stagnant, I call dynamic equilibrium.

If you tried asking scorching questions, and waited long enough for them to burn through the rubber of the mind that ricochets them back disguised as answers, you’d know they fall headlong into a bottomless well like copper coins. They make no sound; no echo is heard.

Everything disappears always all the time.

It really hurts to place conditions on a constant act of disappearance. More prudent to just watch and abide by the cycles of the Earth. There is much wisdom there that doesn’t lend itself to hysteria. I am not very old but I have yet to falsify a single act of nature. At some level, it all fits together perfectly.

And you and me, we are like flutter-dancing butterflies, trying to catch a speck of light that turns our wings to disco balls.

I do not have the skill to turn my words into trembling volcanoes at the root of your gut. I have left mother-grave, country and language behind. I’ve come to the West in search of gold. I’m a settler who has come to reverse the hourglass of history: “Talk to the trees! Regard each other! Unearth the arrowheads of ritual and vision. The river wishes to flow free.”

Count me among the insane. I’ve nothing to lose. My most precious treasures are the beating hearts that climb into bed with me at night, and they are stronger than me, braver. Together we make one whole animal, with eight legs, six eyes, four arms and a needle tail.

I laid my life on the grinding stone and found that it sparked spirit. At first, drained of its genius, it fell mute on a sweaty kitchen windowpane, surrendered to the flies of nihilism. Oh how I abhorred it then, when it took everything, and gave nothing in return. Still, I shaved away until beneath the bone, metal struck nerve, and I awoke as mountain lion, beluga and plasmodium.

The fangs of remembrance tore the remaining flesh to shreds. All longings, all hope, all resistance, all pride become the fertile ground in which I sow the seeds of prayer. And in that prayer, just copper coins falling forever into a bottomless well.

Everything disappears always all the time.