in low orbit over a sea of objects Nov 10, 2023

i am standing on top of a building
up on the corner, not because i will jump
but because it's the only place i feel safe
what they call danger i call safety

i am huddled in my room, headphones and text chat
songs of the pains and joys of the world
friends whose faces i have never seen
voices my imagination has conjured for them

i am flying over the line between wakefulness and sleep
flashes of darkened rooms, of artificial daylight streets
doors, shoes, cars, skies, faces, keys
what is this? who am i? where are we?

the atom comes around again
like the sun over the horizon
the memory resurfaces
a turtle in the invisible ocean

i can't do ten pushups
i can't listen to someone list my flaws
i can't stop my mind from wandering
i am stuck in this hole

i open the door
there's something else i need to be doing
get past the words and feel the melody
there are a million traps for the unwary

in the walls are a thousand spiders
in the sky are uncountable spores
in every moment is a single possibility
ripening like an orchard, like a river

in each hand a fruit, i am shirtless
walking in the cool of the morning
it is raining and it is raining
yet the heat in my face is unquenched

a rock does not want to be held up
but stood upon
a vine does not benefit from praise
but pruning

the moon is sailing in the black sea
the mind is luminous and invisible
moon and mind and me and you
in a bathtub on the beach

what is a law if it can be broken?
what is a lie if it contains the truth?
what is a question that constrains the answer?
how many times have we been through here?

i am beneath the surface
the secret of the secret, hidden inside hiding
always present, always revealing
moving, moving, reaching, speeding, carefully

i am the wall and i am the legs
i am the air and i am the fibers
stretching and folding, massaging the message
stealing the meaning, finding life

have i really learned anything?
is there anything to learn?
i know that around all these stars are so many worlds
and on the worlds i am studying, i am playing

what is inside of me? is it a structure?
is it a river? i can feel that it changes.
i can hear it when it is sad, and when it is joyous.
i can lose myself in it.

what is outside of me? is it a planet?
a space station? i can feel that it is orbiting.
i can hear it groan and buckle.
i can wander its corridors.

i open my eyes on a blue world and die again
passing the interstellar gates, the hammer-rocks
i am aboard a stagecoach coughing black smoke
there is a sick moon in the sky and my handkerchief

there is an itch in my hands
my legs won't keep still and i fear for you
imagining the garden at night, the dew slick
the hill is dangerous in the dark

the window is cracked and the night seeps in
and the winter is creeping into the night
and the sun is crying in the memory of my hands
the kind of tears you get in a lampshade

my papers are all over the carpet
and the moss is wetting the drapes
and the exhaust is choking my muscles
and the vacuum of space is neither cold nor hot

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in low orbit over a sea of objects

links to:
- George Washington Sits Behind The Wheel Of His Brand New 1967 Skylark
- I/i was shouting for you to hear./
- hope is the moon, a star in the sky
- judge a captain not by his shipwrecks, but by whether or not he blames the sea
- keep your eyes open
- looking back from the moment of death, spiralling antimatter from the eyes
- naushka's secret room
- reaching for the fruit
- simple ways to test your soul
- this unlight mantis creeps
- vigil for the king of mortification

all writing, chronological
next: we are trying to get a message back through the stargate
previous: ancient human ritual and the fear of death