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by Katie Kadue |
Wretched It was just water, at first. Water meeting water, a perfect flow, evolution, like dust to dust. Puis, le deluge. The Revolution. A geyser, splattering over everything, superfluous, too much. I say: you are too much. We grab stimuli, we plead for the drugs to set in: such sweet distraction. You said: I want to be mindless. But your mind will not be ignored, and here it is, its imploded remains skimming the surface of the water. Like chunks of fat in homogenized milk. The mind falls last, but still it falls. It comes out my nose and I am choking. What a way to die. I trust my voices--écoute cela, Jeanne d'Arc?--and they asphyxiate me. Staggering, blind--is it coming out my eyes? are my pores leaking? will all the fluid leave my body and leave my organs to dry out? I am withered and rotten behind the roses. But it is only the spots, the dancing kaliedoscope stars like in cartoons. But here they are smaller: the world is a canvas wrapped around the bathroom stall and now someone has poked tiny holes in the painting--how they dance!--and the light shines through. I puff out violently through my nose--the drug, I snorted it too fast, forgive me--and out flies white powder, but sticky, like specks of runny cottage cheese. Troublesome leaky contraband. In my throat is a soft sticky ball caught between two outlets and refusing even to agitate against its confines. I say: You're trapped, don't you care!? Do I have to pull you out with my fingers, my slimy fingers that look of sex and smell of sickness, the membrane of saliva spreading between them so my hands are webbed feet: land or water! I'm adaptable! I beg you: hit me! Nurse my bruises. I stagger to my parents' room, lie on my father's empty bed and cough--frenetic but muted--out out damn spot--and my eyes tear, I'm leaking, it's over. The struggle, the crusade against banality--not a victory, but a cancellation due to lack of funding. Mother wants to know: anything I can do for you? No, it's not over, back to the bathroom--what kind of artist writes one poem and throws down her pen?--and we spread our legs as though to beg for sex. In go the fingers, penetration--my voices stand at attention, aroused. But nothing. I swallow the soft sticky ball and the burial is almost tearless. It's over. Physic I touch your skin and you grip me like a reflex, pro-choice. Still, it is life that matters. Still, I love the way a touch can sink like heavy metal. Your action is a reaction but I stay for your kiss. Love is a choice, as you maintain, but life is a conundrum. You love Latin and legalese, languages of the dead and dry. Have you considered the phenomenon of pheremones? Late at night, we connect, and I feel the synapses in every cell.
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