Hot House Flower
So I came back from the land of the dead last week.
Visiting a friend.
He lives there now - or is there, anyway.
Strange place.
I thought we were just gonna have
a silly little time
Then suddenly
Underworld Customs
Is fixing me with a gray look like
“Passport, please?”
How exhilarating to be so numb, I think
Later,
Prayers whispered fervently into dinner cup, that you'd
Shake me awake, throw a lasso around my waist
& tug tugga me all the way back to Earth
"just kidding baby, the exit is thataway"
we'd laugh and laugh all the way through this half-there
land of the dead 2D shitstorm
Doors stretching wide to swallow us
depositing us back, squarely, in front of the Sun
But here we are.
and as it is
the ethereal me,
reaching light into body - she split.
And, I guess, you doing all that would be too
too
Would be so
idk
so PANTING.
so Romance
so
Hot House Flower
Light-body is MIA
she’s LITerally running into other realms
like oopsie doopsie did I leave you back there??
ha ha teehee
I'm like:
What’s coming out of my mouth?
Oh God.
Even in admitting it,
I can’t make it stop.
Reduced in shine.
Reduced in glaze.
Reducing in size as we speak.
Only pop sugar nothingness
falling out in an endless stream.
High fructose soda water words.
Just keep going why don’t you?
Light-body wonders out loud, from a very very VERY distant location:
So um, what exactly is there to fear that’s not MORE scary
than losing yourself?
I clear my throat and try again:
Excuse me, Farmer, can I like have some more of your mud plssss…
Mmmmm. Spray me with the hose yeah.
Oh.
Let me heave myself in it
Don’t you like it?
They should make a cartoon of me
that's how 2D I am
Pig snout snuffing up the harvest.
She has a love problem.
She’s got a love problem.
Why don’t you say it a little louder?
She’s just a pig.
Mud symphonies, mud poetry, mud essays -- her opus.
Magnifique.
Why Don't You Please Yourself?
My spirit is sent back by snail mail.
4 jars worth of divine self returned to Current Incarnation.
A threat or a gift?
Too early to tell.
I examine the packages,
light-body dazzling -
some sloshed over the sides,
dribbled down dried and later hardened
into lavender colored crystals that sparkle between cork and lip
"it's crazy what they have available in other realms" I think
Contents carefully poured into the same mixing bowl
I use for Saturday morning pancakes I
glue them back together with my spit
and drink.
Seven rounds of antibiotics
I bleed for two weeks straight but
I come back together,
clearer than before
Like the optometrist said one or two
and I said two
and he said good
Later, I go to see a card reader,
on my way home from Judson,
it was random I guess
I took a different route than usual to the L train,
ice and salt crunching under boots
I carefully step so as not to slip.
Two friends pass in matching fur coats
which I turn to admire and at the same time,
their moving bodies fan over the smell of incense from the metaphysical shop, olfactory sign posts hard at work.
I'm enjoying the pleasure of a day with no obligations
So why not?
The door twinkles merrily as I open it.
I overhear the card reader reading for someone else
A honey'd voice belonging to an old black woman with high cheekbones
and plum colored lipstick
Two figures seated low in a shadowy corner
behind curtains
less curtains than star spangled mosquito nets.
I cross to the other side of the room to get a better look
stealthily, eyes turned low
as though someone is going to grab me by the crook of my arm and demand
I have a seat.
She’s reading from a computer, the oracle
A computer the size of a takeout box
displays a plain deck of playing cards
It could be solitaire for all I know.
I distrust an automatic process,
but I recognize this is a first flinch reaction
what I've been taught, not what I want, not necessarily what I believe.
I'm trying to befriend all technology
be besties, friendship bracelets, summers spent holding hands
The other woman is also wonderfully old
a colorful newsboy cap carefully pulled over white hair
After the reading they compliment one another on their respective beautiful skin
"Yes, you’ve done an incredible job, my goodness, look at you."
It feels harmless, compliments for the sake of
Girl culture is ageless.
I feel stupid for worrying.
About that visit to the land of the dead, his hollow energy, my panic.
I feel stupid for worrying. But is it stupid?When
I know these dips into the Underworld
they're nothing to laugh at
You’re just suddenly 10,000 feet up to your ass in starless soil
The Earth is tasting you, discerning
“Change, or I’ll kill you myself.”
She's threatens,
sweetly.
That’s kind of the whole point? about all those heroes
in ancient myths,
that there is no guarantee you’re coming back from an Underworld journey.
Someone gets forced into going to
save someone they love
or retrieve a lost object,
or claim their personal kingdom.
And most of them even do die a little once once they’re down there
like they get their bodies turned inside out
flesh exposed to the stale air strung up like some dinner table lamb for a few hundred years
Until spiritual assistance comes along ala a diety who has a stake in their success,
Or, sometimes, every so often,
by some great and incredible talent of their own
which is still usually described as an inhuman force
But
usually
the gods have a stake
or someone does anyway
Allies,
never to be taken for granted.
Individual success is, as it ever was, a myth
The point is, a successful climb out isn't made to sound easy or promised
because it's not
The Universe at large is either very polite or
that sick sense of humor is showing again.
BECAUSE, If you do come back, if
Your reward is a gift
Enchanted items, riches, prophetic sight perhaps
that good stuff
“What you saw is true, he's dying this year.”
The tarot reader said, her voice velveteen bunny
“But it’s ok, baby, he's supposed to die. It’s in Jupiter, so it’s about transformation, rebirth.”
I’m embarrassed by how deep my sigh of relief is
especially here, behind this netting, legs collapsed beneath me
I remember what I forgot
this universal bargain structure, yes
I forgot about the possibility of rebirth, of the gift
In my panic I forgot the process.
Also, I now realize, I was caught up in your stories
They press on me, integrate
I can feel them lapping up the salt on my skin
Slipping into the cave of my pores
Your fears - become my fears
Your anxiety, my anxiety
You tried to joke about this
I missed it
This is what to do about my light body
Lickety splitting when it matters most,
Bumping around other dimensions:
P-l-a-y
The Universe wasn’t playing when she
Sent me back my body in pieces
"You're gonna be the Underworld's next errands boy
if you don't get serious"
What's more scary than losing yourself?
Can confirm, I'm on my bullshit again.
Next time,
I'll pig Whistle myself back, ring the cowbell, play the dinner call
Come running fur doused in mud
Snout raised high, feet dancing
Eyes rolled back,
Yes.
I could
tell you to send word when you return.
Ferrycrosser guy is drunk again but
he gets you from point a to point b,
So,
Sparklers and bubbly, honey.
Wow!!!! FUCKING WOW!!!!!