the third day

no real answers no real tools no real self beyond this feeling all this plastic packaging the virus and her parasite. the body is the temple in the self help and Corinthians. Jesus split the temple open when they tore him off the cross. to leave they bid me do the same. I feel the changes my foundations shake waistline threatened with implosion. and so we break my temple open lacking tools for resurrection. I pray the third day never comes.

re: maybe I should keep this to myself

he's not real. your eyes are and you're good at painting pictures about what they see with words. and I think you're right. nobody will ever know you beyond yourself. I guess we're lucky you're a writer and you keep painting these still-lifes for us to try to understand.

I love you. this is beautiful. no doubt you changed things for her. no doubt they've all been changed by you. it is a privilege to be on the fence to laugh to mourn sit with you and listen.

and you're not alone, no matter where. we are always only ever in between. we learn to distract ourselves with each other and reflections of desire whatever we project consume take away from things we see and hear and eat and shit. another day looks different for everyone. but we all sit on the same assembly line. all born screaming all take oxygen make carbon til we're spat back into the mud from which we grew. it's all a little silly. I'm just glad to sit on the line next to you.

less time online

sitting in a circle defining addiction and other ways we play ourselves. the dialectical balances / opposing truths that won't see eye to eye. conflicting facts can both be true. consider the tensions draw lines between acceptance and change and try to believe in both.

the teacher scribes some more in green marker fading through reflection of the last day of sun. 'dialectical abstinence'. consider abstinence and harm reduction. both work for some less so for others. try to balance the two. commit to specific time-bound goals make them realistic start from where you are. reject the static praise the paradox on which we build our every breath fear crisis revelation vision unrequited infatuation merger supermarket morgue. let's see where it goes.

I take notes and lap the wisdom whilst I'm here / it's free / I can. the teacher asks us questions. I say I want to spend less time online.

selling sense

I dream in colours I can't keep. when I wake I reach for places for people far from who and where I am. the sun rolls through to poison dreams to take me where it must. my shoes do the walking. I think when I can if it helps. we make room for change for growth between dawn and final destinations. we do this blind, believing sense will lead us somewhere beautiful. if only I could buy more from the shops.

on metabolism

the body makes decisions for us. underfueling prompts a period of hibernation. we soon see that the cave brain is primal: any sustained lack of fuel is flagged a famine. metabolism is a fire / will fade to embers without fuel / slows to preserve what the body already has. the choice isn't ours to make. it's all just evolution.

the body conserves energy, restricting function not essential for survival. the body sources fuel by breaking itself and making its own. digestion slows cognition too with the pulse and drops in temperature and hormones. vital organs do the best they can but they belong to animals. we need fuel we pathetic meat machines prone to egomania and thinking we are different. ignorance is programmed we forget our sameness the world beyond ourselves the eternal charade we march from womb to tomb. we want so much more than body and breath. our will means little to the fire. the body takes what it needs and does what it can.

infection

reading on the tram filling every crack of time of space between one place and the next. someone's grandma by my side playing infection on her tablet tapping all the cities sends her plague across the map. she coughs into her tapping hand. I lose wherever I was on whichever page. the virus spreads. she nods and smiles and coughs again.

guinea pig

when they ask me how I feel I tell them 'like a guinea pig'. I follow doctors down corridors to sterile chairs for observation. they wrap their tools around me stick another in my ear set me on the scales to praise or shame whatever's changed. I nod to the tune of their orders. they tell me what to do and lay the law of what I can't. the parasite squirms and flounders in their petri dish. we watch the data dance / the loss / the gains from one week to the next / up and down / so much for us to learn. they take their notes and keep me dancing / crawling blind from one frame to the next. I think they're happy with my progress. I make a great experiment.