So I’m staring at god — who has a serious drug problem — and I’m thinking: when was the last time you let the phone ring out? And I’m wishing: maybe you would let it ring out this time. And I was praying — but anymore, we all are. And I believe that anymore, everyday, it’s all the same–sane tick–tock count backwards.
But, again — do you want to know when it stops to mean anything? When praying stops to mean anything?
It’s when you’re staring at god. Two bottles of Jack trip-wire whiskey like endlessly empty Egyptian deserts that for paradise’s sake we’ll call white beaches, that trace dark rain–infested clouds along roach–plagued, mirror–blessed priests kneeling and preaching sex like an alcohol–shifting pride-party oasis trapped in a ‘third world’ distortion of salvation — what we’ll call, a setback; what we’ll call starvation.
It’s a ring–ring (count three) ring–ring, and really you don’t have to pick it up— not this time, not anytime.
It’s just easier. It’s just calmer. It’s near–nirvana.
Or maybe, it’s not. Maybe it’s not easier, calmer. Maybe it’s not nirvana. Maybe this has nothing to do with god.
But you don’t have to — again, ever, always — pick up the phone. Maybe it’s a pill or two. A think–back snap. A head–jerk twice–round, a camera angle zoom front–to–back shift–up and watch: eyes to the sky — like a director’s cut that’s pupil dilated and timed to enhance my experience, or this illusion.
It’s what I call god. Or a story. Or paradise.
But again, again, like everyday, like everything, it’s all the same–again always moment.
And I’m thinking I could say hello (again) like a slow (sick) song I’ve spelt before. When I said “I’ll never give you wings” I meant “we’ll watch this fade and slip away.” Like a pick–me–up moment in a movie, or a tragedy. Something in the anything that’ll make all this something — a you in a me in a you in a nothing in me or you.
You. Or me.
Or nothing, I thought (was thinking). Or darkness — like when the lights go out and the crowd leaves and you’re left only with the lyrics that leave you helpless, and the moments regardless. And a daughter’s begging, beg–memory’s left you by yourself stained with pile–piled boxes stuffed with picture books coloring highways in fantasy’s that paint princes and dragons and all the fairytale exclusions fostered in the nothingness engulfing you now — engulfing you now — on that empty stage; a mother’s memory and this is a cling-restore parody show being blown and shown on a television skyrocket satellite program like Nazi–infested dreams spewing the spellings of strayed teachings, stranded children, failed religions — all to make me forget.
Like the other day when I forgot how to feel.
That same day, I forgot how it felt to forget how to feel.
And it’s me and god and everyone we know.
Like a shudder’s whisper crawling across the poems engrained in your (my) back. It shifts under a wind’s spiral like something I’m supposed to believe in. Like something
I’m supposed to hold on to.
But I can’t.
Because all I ever do is crash back down into this poem’s verse, this song’s next chorus — the (our) last refrain. That’s the lay me down to keep ‘i’m sorry’ stitch weaved and etched, patterned, traced and tried and scraped.
And so I’m staring at god — who, by the way, has a seriously fucked up drug problem — and I’m thinking, was thinking: wouldn’t it just be easier to let it ring out this time? Avoid, distract, from anything that’s the me that’s never me — the forget–me–now story I’ve never spelt.
So I’ll say sorry and god’s a reflection in the mirror that’s traced and ached and woken and slapped and tattered — like a starving African story you read about at the dinner table — you sort of have to pry the bottle out of his hand.
And this is the way I was never able to say sorry.
But this isn’t the truth’s truth: it’s an ever-ending story tricked and traced into everything that never happens. Truth is not feeling this feeling. It’s an end–me–now song and I can’t spell sold–sell words to you because that’s not the me that’s me. And my truth is that I wish, everyday, for something to keep the wishes away. The countless moment’s
I prayed would keep the moments away.
When everything was so long ago — when anymore, everything is.
And this ringing ring is maybe clouds or images or notebooks, memories and words and songs, cluttered, shoved and trapped and wrapped tightly neatly under some christmas–deluding tree–fantasy that’s meant to bring everything (all of us) together — something draped in white or covered in a tar-tragic wish (like I wrote in a storybook) — a parabol in a paragraph that spells the everything that can’t be spelt, that can’t be explained. The reason that nothing means anything. The mountains unsurpassable, always unsurpassable.
These words written for thought, or prayer.
And it’s a journey’s journey back to birth, a trace back to death, this ringing’s ringing endless in endlessness and for fucks sake! how long can a phone keep ringing and I’m in a flow so I’ll bid you my greatest sorrow this greatest joy — trapped in my sorrow’s swollen swallow rhythm, trapped in my greatest raven’s tragic nightmare. Astray, I’m laden and this is a journey to birth — a journey to death — a departure from picturesque satellite mornings. An age of nevermore.
A parabol infection.
A mathematical deception — an oil–infested tragedy that burns on an on, again and never, forever and ever, and never again, again, over and again, on and on. Like the waves in our minds, so deep and forgotten.
AND
Reflection, this morning, is an eye’s glare. All you hear is scraping. And you feel this itch inside — somewhere writhing against your liver, maybe. Or your stomach.
And it starts with scratching, at the skin. Then it’s ripping at organs, a finder’s find keep–sake — something, anything for an itch — a find it–destroy it–rip it–cut it–break it end. Let it suffocate in breath on the floor. Let it die in breath. Let it writhe. Till its last breath.
Like childhood. Like growing up. Like everyday.
When every prayer you mutter is meaningless.
When profit is a prophet.
When I’m the only breath you can breathe you’ll fade away.
But it’s okay, because we all know this story.
Hello? Hello. Hello…
Fuck.
It’s a pill–popping dark black cloud fading like tears on paper, like a suicidal tragedy trapped in failed art — failed humanity.
Hello! Hello. Hello? Hello…
Anybody?
It’s a gun and it’s loaded. Hello?
It’s a tear and that’s my tear.
Hello? Hello.
Everyday, the same hello. The hello I utter to the ghosts that call me.
The ghost that haunts me.
And this gun — hello? — in my hand, is loaded. For the right — hello —reasons. Because you left a note, a letter, a -— hello… — diary.
A sort of guidebook to the failure that was me.
A sort of warning to everyone that would know me.
Maybe what you showed to god. Sort of like a bribe.
And it’s — hello? — guilty without an explanation.
So try rebuilding your life. Try starting again.
Actually — hello… — try anything.
Try a job. Try a home. Try a family. Try believing. Try wishing. Try moment’s. Try to drink. Try to put a gun to your head. Try pills. Try waking up. Trying sleeping. Try leaving. Try staying. Try eating. Try starving. Try nothing. Try moving. Try organizing, shuffling. Try traveling. Try bleeding. Try messed up. Try television. Try cooking. Try silence. Try reading. Try crying. Try singing. Try writing. Try feeling. Try fading. Try ending.
Try failing. One more time.
Because everyone that will ever know you knows one thing about the me that’s the me in the endless me: the spelt failure’s failure.
I’m your tragedy and your book will sell. Like a song (by the Beatles).
Hello? Loaded and locked and cocked — hello? — and I’m wishing I’m praying about thinking about praying about wishing about you.
Hello. Hello?
Fuck.
But look, you don’t worry. Don’t worry. Cause god’s in rehab. Cause god’s got a drug problem.
So I’m not coming back.
I’m not going there. I’m not going anywhere.
Because, look: god’s got a drug problem and I’m not coming (home) to (you, my) heaven.
Next scene (and cut to the cinematic wow): you see the paint–lined brains of a drug–addicted god saving us all scattered across glass-glossed tile enclaves.
So I’ll blow you a kiss and we’ll end this.
Hello, again.