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.

andromeda

a group of students gather round a telescope on south lawn at night. the library is about to close. they look to the sky as though there's something to be seen beyond the light pollution. they know the clouds can't change the fact that stars are there. the limit of our sight means nothing: andromeda will glow regardless.

I think about the surface / how little I know from what I can see / the worlds beyond my gaze and comprehension. no doubt the most important things cannot be seen; every bible says the same. if only I could trust the stars as much I do my eyes.

golden hour cemetery

somewhere between a lost mind and found feet. intermittent thinking ripples in and out of reach, closer than before but still not quite mine yet. I shake I quiver at the edge. I am a paper boat passing under the bridge. a new body I would never choose the same brain too stubborn to change. 

the lady at the pub says her dog is medicated. SSRIs for a few months. but she's been so fine today maybe it's time to take her off. on my phone I fall from this plane swim away through many a cause for medication. bombs and babies martyrs enough to fill a shopping mall face cards enough to care a little more. my ex housemate posting golden hour selfies from the cemetery. I hope she had a happy birthday.

never let me go

sometime between coffee and night school (nearly dusk). a boy in black sitting under a tree on south lawn. soft silver somethings dangle (both ears) long dark hair a little like mine shoes I own but never wear. he's reading the book I bought for your birthday. baggy pants I'd like to buy. I want to take his picture know his thoughts see you again. the story didn't move you but it still lives on your shelf. it was my favourite for a while.

sun starts to sink again. he marks his page zips his bag stands in his baggy pants to leave. the black birds swoop down round his waist from one tree to the next.

onions

how far can I fall into myself? the static is a bandaid only here to fill the gaps. skies change I should I don't I cannot outrun truth. what good are eyes that only cry for onions?