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Worldly attire He's expired. Finally the perishable clay clotted into dust, The eyes in between winks, Attempting a stolen final glance, Unsuccessful. The enigmatic expression,
A final creative burst of twitches, Cold fire frozen lakes misty eyed piercing gaze, A knowing look, A perceptible smile? He doesn't need that worldly attire, He's the richest corpse I've robbed for weeks, I lay a pretty rag on top ofhis legs, not his face, As if cold was alive inside him, It was inside of me, And I was minus one beautiful stolen jacket. I have seen so many of these, Older and younger, women, even children, Why do I stop as if arrested? Senses as dull as mine, Moisture clings unwelcome to the nape but not to my eyes, my eyes. So many slain, more than I require to sustain, Catatonic laziness.
I
see a sweet shape and a harmonious note,
I'll
kiss expiry later.
ftga Q.s7n, Ati
Kh,nn
I'll follow.
kL0N2O
V ER.Eâ&#x201A;Ź\J
Chivalrous Anarchy last monday... Chivalry was hidden,., from our world... for our world.,. we told the followers he died,., natural causes... last monday... rules and stipulations... secretly... subliminally... subjugating others of opposing sexes... no longer existed... understand... Chivalry... was all for pulling back chairs... she was all for leading her partner into a room of crowded people... he was all for... standing on the tubes... it felt that older... younger... people ofthe same age... plagued by the fragility ofcotton skirts.,. patent leather
stilettos... revlon... carrotcuttrousers... manbags... upsidedownnooses usedtohold acollarinplace... would need a seat... and it... he... she... never took things away from those deemed needy... so Chivalry was all for... standing on the tubes. last wednesday when she pulled back her own chair and sat the ceiling did not fall. last wednesday they walked hand-in-hand into the pub one careful not to walk faster one carefrrl not to walk slower than the other. last wednesday she paid for his drink and he paid for hers, she paid for dinner and he purchased the theatre tickets. last wednesday an elderly woman five feet four inches disheveled hair hunched back with black scarf blowing in the wind carried her groceries home half a mile. last wednesday weary from a full day of janitorial work commiserating his forty-seventh year on the job and his sixty-sixth birthday her husband stood for forty-five minutes on the tube. legs wobbling. no one proffering. last friday she pulled back her chair for lunch sat and sulked because he used to be so different and he was once caring sensitive attentive now he just seemed selfish and it was as if the death of his leader Chivalry granted him the permission to think of only himself so it was as if she no longer existed and on last friday she left her wallet home more out of habit than any other reason but when they arrived at the pub he approached the bar leaving her behind to order a pint which he paid for and then he turned to her and asked what are you waiting for aren't you getting anything to which she responded i left my money home and didn't realize it until we arrived to which he said well i'll finish this and we can just head back and last friday the elderly woman awoke with the purpose of telling her husband about walking home alone with tiring arms and aching shoulders because she hadn't told him thursday because she didn't want to ruin his birthday and he was sad enough as it was seeing how they were both devout followers of Chivalry before the murder and the janitor was affected so deeply by the act that he took the rest of monday off and thursday he left the house dejected and renmed with his own story to tell convincing her to keep hers locked inside her chest until the next day but when friday came she found no need of releasing it
Earlier this morning, the elderly woman heard the mmor. She visited the caves on the outskirts of town. What she came across didn't stun her. It pleased her. Without saying one word, she cautiously stepped over the slippery rocks, grabbed Chivalry's hand and escorted him home, walking before him and holding his hand the entire way. She climbed her stairs, opened her door, and ushered Chivalry inside.
imakemyentrance withbombattachedtoback approachingtheelderlycoupleshome
withChivalryinside theywouldntdareturruneaw ay
hap
i'm sorry but i (sozzers) there ain't nothin but round here the slow dul1 thud of heart upon heart gently torn apart t.hat heart is mine. you put the col-our in my eyes, i smile at. shreds of flesh left unguarded eunafraid like any living being spat. on
guttered
real.
('happiness' is 3 letters &far Loo unpunctual to be wort.h our whileyour nails will be ripping at. my skin your mouth will be torn apart &your every clenched muscl-e will scream :hat.eâ&#x201A;Ź / / / / / / 'you're still here &i dream
h*y bvrb<,
I Whale Blood clouds in the wave, it rains for hours
I'm pouring
This is my blood, my rain
ln the blue holes, through
sea bowels
Sieving the whole Soul of the World Through my skull, pushing myself into its corners
Blubber overflows like rivers when it floodrains
I am foraged, a forgotten field of skin' Things won't grow and are mudstuck,
Bloodbanks cave in, seams drop-stitch rotten landfall
Wintering bodypile like
Dropped trout. My
a
whole orchard of apples.
brain's
unhooking
This is how you gulp quicksand, how you tell safe hands to let go.
Below watertight wound of sky and sea I am heaps of Unskimmed stones heavy with lung, waterlogged Sinking slugging shores of stone homing towards more stone
The bookend marble basin of earth,
flint on flint, my heart amongst this
Fold of peach; battering against earthskin, split chins
On shark teeth, afterbirth, gaveyards of gills
I move boulders of old bodies
Snout-nudging for the finish-line Flag in ice, the last stop first sleepwalk, Beginning of being air
There's this great weight I've been carrying round on my Shoulders, there's shedding that must be done
An unpacking of my humpback, the misery
I've been storing up like fat.
Men dream of opening me up, men dream Stretchmarks of the underworld like rings in oak, The wormholes, the teethcasts, the crooked bones. These are the bruises
I'm left with- the birthmark love-marks, !
fL.
Patches of darkspace clinging to more dark
Like trees sca:red by lightening, lands torn apart.
Torn apart, I am mammal-showers, fleshy downpours, last storms
It'll
take years to shrug yourself from my thunder,
Months of mothballs radiators sunbeds towels What is this pain? This bloodrain,
th,,ese
hours of leaking.
Like an old house, gaffa taped, walls falling into the garden A tear-duct, miles away, pulses through sand calling my name So ripples grow and become something less dull,
Something throatlike. Water-voices, watered down Shouts, mouthfuls of spectre, they stay eardrumming Grave'song pulling towards rain
And more rain hours of it. Bloodpools. Breathless. This is a soggy world. You won't get dry from it. From this scrapheap drowning in your own skin. You won't get dry from my saliva I lick bones of the world clean Before I let the flood in, before I bring ocean to my wounds like Hammering death-holes in boats and doing nothing
A blackhole tidal wave tent of skin freefalling finally cold-blooded I think of all the water colours, the landlubbers and wait...... Half-way down now
It takes time, this process of dying. This timeline of being
N
Chopped down, a forest of bones scattering themselves; Poplars and firs, the darkening bark of scapulas, The foliage of ribs. Someone
will collect
S
the wood and inspect it.
Before quietness, there are murky coastlines, places so dark
\
You don't know who you are, forever night-time in this empty space Before the tongues come and take over
In every season of watero there is something different, someone you once knew I go through each feeling and try to touch it Daylight, Midnight, Twilight, remembering it and forgetting and Being still
lI--.
I
As you were
lf I told you I missed you, you'd probably laugh. Then again, you always laughed qt serious things like love ond politics. Sometimes I laughed with you,
because you were cute. Other times, I told you to stop acting like a child, and you loughed even horder because you thought I was joking. I ended up laughing with you anyway, since the alternative
would've been shaking you hord, and l'm pretty sure thot counts as assault in this country.
lf I told you l'd like to see you again, you'd probably think nothing of it. !t's the thing you soy on Focebook when you want to justify randomly butting into q conversation iust because you're bored. Everyone misses one another in front of a computer screen. Everyone who never cored enough to give you the time of doy would love a reunion, xoxo. True feelings lose whstever little vqlue they might've had. I guess it's better, in o woy. Nobody can get hurt becquse
nothing is real enough to be broken. lt's not a porcelain vase, it's a cloud. Nobody worries about clouds coming oport.
lf I told you to come with me tomorrow, you'd be surprised. Surprised, omused, confused. You'd say no. You'd think I've gone mad. Moybe I have. What is mad? It's only o tabet to stick to things we don't understand. An excuse not to face truths we con't occept. l'm mod, you don't hove to deqlwith me. You don't have to listen, You con laugh it off.
lf
You won't be alive tomorrow. Of course, you don't know this.
lf ltold you I could save your life, that would change everything. Wouldn't it? You'd dance for me then, you fucking hypocrite' So I don't tell you these things after I watch you perform in your latest piece of shit musical. ln fact,
don't tell you anything at all. You probably wouldn't remember me, and l'd like to remember you as you were.
bg
,â&#x201A;Źtfâ&#x201A;ŹF t{etrxol t&'
fb'-==--
F* ?' * '* *sb
\r* \l
I
abandoned beach. Crabs which scuttled lived alone in a Piece of tubing on an the content of his thoughts. !o, carry himmlnd along the beach were believed QV.hls he would think, entered toPic new some whenever
oem
-
",jDt-t
\
ty or anguish a thought gave him oem would. determine eased on the the moral worth of particular crabs. es t'ime-went on certain thought-types were 'associated with certain shapes and hues of crab. For instance; the pang of fear and confusion Dem feels when he thinks of the school teacher's scream the time he had to pul I that gi 11 s hai r ten times because it was her birthday (He just couldn't let go - she wouldn't have got her good luck like everyone else and she'd be cursed). That feeling is asSociated with the little crabs which move across the beach at an alarmin rate, snap suddenly at some twig or another, and then hurrieldly set off again. pl easurabi'li
Chr[s Cotr,ch
-?raiiu
1.o. I
'v
to move around a1ot before he found the "Real Sand Home". He'd go small towns and do menial jobs for which he was hardly ever paid, usally due 'incompetence but occasionally because of the ease of exploitation. He'd soon become reviled and be forced to move a1ong. He never truly knew where he was. l,tost minds compartmentalise geography into places, areas, streets, which are coloured by buildings, colours, faces, down-the-road-froms, next-to-whatevers and so on. The space Dem lived in however was one long stretch with doorways on a par with trees. Yet Dem's choice to live in the Real sand Home was not arbitrary, it felt beautiful. rt's lack of people, although he loved them, it's fantasticrassortment of shapes strewn upon the dirty sand and it's pallete consituted by a faded variant of nearly eVery colour was welcoming to'him-_so much so th-at when he first laid ustrial pioe he was to call his home he exclaimed, oem used
ja
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ur,^oP L LaJ
Puv
,,_lHome
sweet
home ! "
oem ul.lqe uelll made a olr bit or of money oy by busking OUSKlng On on a neafoy nearby n'lgn high street. Street. He OnCe once had a'lâ&#x201A;Ź a iob as a litter collector at a dock where the sailors-would play olav guitar oiritar and s'in!. sini when they left he found a fivq string acoustic and learnt t6 6tav. ne iried-to \v-/ recitg.the.songs the sailors used to-sing about walls, watchtbwe-rs. There was a one old olo sailor-who sailor wno.useo,to sallor who.gseq,to. used to. sinq sing sea-shantys srng sea-sha and never, as an an_absolute abgolute rule, ru1e, ddid Dem attempt Fg_recite these. rhe sea for Dem was a great evil; an expanse (oA constantly shifting. rt was fo! p4!ch of inittiing-but'ari anlth'ing but'an amiTgimition ama'lgamation of no! a fixed pqlch -a thousand -J' movements, as such was it teri'ify'inqly teri'ifyingly uirknowfr and beyond 6is a comprehension. only the darkest and-dirtiest and dirtiest of tfre the crabs would-6iing would brino him though3s about the sea,-and-worqt gf all was.that fir:qq_beast who br5ught to, mind-the jmqge of himsirlf floundering alone a1c in the middle of the ocean-with no bnd in siqht, only more and more mofion. yet that crab was believed by Dem to be the provenanqe of all his_thought and ttre iuter of the Real sand Home. rt was on thb whim of that crab alone whether whether the t-oqd of Humble fie-wai iad-or angry, euphoric_gf lqlrey. Neverthelesq, oemlihouqht sent-oli tnb angellic flat crabs, with joyous memories of the time tre founA"a one-wheeled red 6icycle buried beneath a-thin'layer of sand, or the of annoyance at iFuffl'inq hermit crabs, which brought back to him the feeling good reason. get for a so Dem knew he did that bread, to able _not bein6
.^o''A
"'9
for.a few days nothing pqt distasteful thoughts had been I Dem woulo would run up up. to tne mind., sometlmes sometiires.oem the sea hls mlno, sea-and in his. and drop drop to hh'i fester ]n .makinq sure that the water didn't lap against him, and scream out':==---_However, whgn
"viIe
kin
crab
,
!
and
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this up, r will leave your to love and I i sten?"
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Unblackberrvinq A blackberry lies quite whole in the flowerbed, Wrenched from its stem by some unknowing force, It is a fallen fruit, a berry stricken. As yet unsullied by dank soil surrounding, 'Tis a mass of polyps purplish-black, A minute cluster of burnished orbs fused by sunlight and the nip of the wind. A bush of unripe amaranth obscures a lost portion of its crop, From the tentative fingers o{ passers-by. And so our berry lies unpunctured, Whilst beneath its barbed surface, Caustic juices are brimming silently. But this one is not to be savoured. Miserable juices ebb away... Yet below its cobwebby film, The earth is moistened once again. Bo Bottomley
Cherry Blossoms You planted a small cherry blossom tree, The week I was born, at Newport street. With leaves given life by the wind's genfle rhymes, The branches almost reached the washing line. And tfe fourteen years that passed were sweet; Well - its easier to remember short bursts of soft pink C.louds than grey, bare branches of bitter ink Blown across paper with straws; Its th.e mind that decides which colours endure. And how tall stands the proud tree today? 6It 2? Or was it uprooted, before we planted one for you ln the back yard of the house we moved to. Its strange to think, the last time we would meet Was under the summer leaves at Newport street, Niall Mcloughlin
souL \& It whispered the
It motivated
me
dreams in my eaxs, driving away all the perilous fears.
agair
rucould
after
:oyband
as'p ofhi:
to scale a cliff, when the contention was stiff.
It emboldened me to cross the stormy
ilw
seas,
to reach the shore at ease.
It gave me immense
ringyear perso theyoung- Dal
hope,
thin threads aided as a strong rope.
It rallied with a spark of optimism, to vandalise the lamp of pessimism.
ter,hewas riledtowin asearned
genui
Ithem
andn
A-levels. at urther redal.c
insist,
wilde
beena
examl alcohc
lsomething gavefi
It tailored the skillful artistry,
restood
to build my castle and monastery.
It helped me explore exotic locus, with Success as the cardinal focus.
It's beauty never loved or
seen,
the origin of strength it has ever been.
never can it be killed.
It stays.
It stays
on for Eternity.
--TiLrr^?i71,
v
that.
lbad
DaI,
upto rt of it,
autt
my
r'get
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to
r
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r
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It is amalgamated with the build,
Itwas
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as
Iknou
i
\ * * * * * ,.-::'-'-'"'-
the vastness, openness ofhorizon, and hummus in stores,
capitalistic mentality of organization. roundness of buses and the tube. sweet buildings, parks on every square, sharp sunshine when it comes. being at the center (centre?)
of seemingly superficial things. all kinds of creative niches. the feeling i can do anything the amount and variety of people the availability of books, records, newspapers
tops ofbuses and overground districts like their own little towns red and white cranes chaotically organic city landscape, breathable via walks and rides inexhaustible palette of shades of grey some mixture of self-importance and open_endedness, the cutting of roots yet feeling in place.
daffodil bunches libraries (and most things about higher education) no rush in growing up
recycling bins and reusable bags no charge on incoming calls 24/7 night transport layers: a lot.
Ynn
Ft&,,
0\^(Cz0'ro'{-
Bo Bottomley
Camels On the 29 again, Past
the building with the corridors
and huge great door that belches out small figures Onto the street by my windowseat. Waifs and wonder-whys loom about, Like bleached sails all puffed up and dancing in the windSoon bent double in the driving rain,
Jerking up then down again. Their battle rages on, Summoning all power lost and nearly - but not quite won, Flickers of amber light make eyes, wide and dull like dirty
Wretched pools of water form around creped solessooty muck ponds sucking up the smokg To stop them choking on their own syrupy nothingness.
Overhead, birds wheel
this way and that, cooing, cooing... 'smokers outside the hospital doors, The saddest thing I ever saw.'
Earlv Summer By fames Draney
It felt cold out even though I knew it wasn't. 65 degrees maybe. I was sure that I was coming down with something. My first full day home and I was already feeling sick. "Pass me one," Alex said. I threw him a beer from the cooler. This was all his idea, not to say that it was a bad one, but I wasn't as in the mood for drinking as he was.
"Beautiful fucking day," he said. "l feel chilly," l replied. "Don't ruin this for me," I suppose it was a pleasant afternoon. We were sitting by the river near my house. The sky was blue. Sometimes we would hear a plane fly by. We both looked up but never spoke. "Weird to be home, man." I said. Alex had done this before. He was going into junior year. I had only just been a freshman. Princeton wasn't even that far from his where I lived. Wasn't even all that different to be honest. But after a full year away it still felt strange to come home to the place where I had lived my whole life previously. It felt foreign here. "You get used to that feeling," Alex took another sip from his beer. I saw a Baby Ruth wrapper float down the river. "Do you have friends?" "Of course I have friends." "That's good," Alex approved. "People I can call up at night, see what's happening. I don't really like any of them though." "You'll get used to it." "l guess." Alex stood irp but I stayed on the ground, reclining like some figure in a painting. He looked up and down the river, took a sip. "My best friend is a girl," I confessed. "You fuck her?" Alex appreciated this rugged and masculine type of chatter, or at least he pretended to. I don't think he actually liked it, "No. I don't even know if I want to." "You're a pussy." He said, smiling. "lt's weird being friends with a girl though. It's like, when she gets laid I feel weird patting her on the back and giving her a high five, Sometimes I do that and she just starts pouting." "Like, crying?" "No she'll just look sullen, like she regretted it. I'm like, well if you regret it then why did you tell me? Y'know?" "Yeah," Alex nodded. I don't think he was listening. "And when she pukes from drinking too much I can't laugh at her. I have to hold her hair back and try to make her feel like she hasn't made a fool out of herself."
All these things were true and they were things that I had spent all of Spring semester thinking about. Thoughts of this girl consumed me. Not in a sexual way but in the kind of way you think about your dog. Or, I should say, the idea of your dog. Its roll in your house as part of the family. The implications of its existence. Does it know how cute and stupid it looks when it tries to chase its own tail? "l'm broke as well. Don't know how I'm gonna pay for shit next year," I said. Alex turned around and sat down again. He still wasn't listening. "Did you get laid at all this year?" "Yeah, once. But it was shitty." "Were you at aparty?" "We had been at a party. We met there that night. It happened in her room though." Alex sat in silence for a second, mulling over some distant memory in his mind. "Yeah," he finally said again, nodding. "You getting a job this summer?" "My dad wants me to work at his office but that sounds boring." "Would you rather work at KFC?" . "Yeah, actually." I liked what being a student actually was but I hated the idea of it all. I hated the idea that I was just passing through this phase that everyone passes through. Especially at a place like Princeton where everyone is the same type of person. Some academically rebellious teenager. The kind of guy who read books in high school and wanted to be a writer. Who wanted to sit in wood panelled rooms and think and talk and drink in the evenings. I don't think I was like those people, but I've managed to fit right in with them, "l'm doing a year abroad next year," Alex said. "Where?" "England." "London?" "Nope, Oxford." "Congratulations." "Thanks." I couldn't decide if I was impressed with this or not yet. "This guy I know went last year. Said the women are fucking boring and ugly though," he said, "Does that matter?" "lt matters a lot, I feel. The program is called'study abroad'but I doubt I'll do too much actual studying. That's not what these things are really about." "What are they about then?" "Experiencing a different culture and shit like that, obviously. It's about fucking different kinds of women, eating different kinds of food. Getting drunk in a breign country is different than getting drunk here." "l really don't think it is." I had never had good conversations with Alex in high school. I don't know why we spent time together. I suppose it's because I can stand to be silent around ,lhim, which is a rare thing. It's comfortable. I almost prefer it to our bland and inappropriate banter. I asked him for.another beer. "You're sitting right next to the cooler," he pointed out. I had forgotten.
i can make love here if i want early, deserted, shimmering haze of tesco cosmetics will make my body clean again r (in the desert moses found a spring water of life will sustain those who don'L know it) those who shouldn't be laughing at Ehe morning sun. (like a long lost friend. i challenged it to see who could stay up the longesE for i am icarus with nikes my eyes growing ever wider at the world we are brothers we are brothers now my souL's been sold and wat.ch me if you dare
i can't hide no shadows in the desert air just me and beauty dancing there i sha11 go to soho, to berkeley, to tangier anywhere
i shal1 go home. and then somewhere along tottenhafli court road as the rains clean the pavemenLs as the colours come back and the buildings restack in t.he aching, early, shimmering morning my eyes stop seeing, my feet stop bleed.ing my arms collapse in prayer and the people gingerly avoid my stare fina11y, the world lays me down i can make love here, ds anlmrhere.
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I "Thud-thud!" Sounds thudding through the floor. You chmb down the tower stair. Some scuttling. Through the opened door,
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II "Tweet-tweet!" Then, at the tube station, Rose's stomach rises and falls.
Within the waves of blurred faces She sways and slouches on the wall.
In heals and polyester skirt Her buckled knees and long white legs And eyes smudged black, opened wide. Her bobbing sixteenth-year head Lurches outwards suddenly as if to scream, Heaves the contents of the night Onto the pavement, glistening.
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Roman, sensing some advantage Presses stubble on that soft cheek And supporting her by the waist Whispers in little certainties.
(Would Mother believe, if you told, In your nightgown with your sigh How, oozing through the flashing lights The wind plays with Rose's thighs?)
After patience and insistence And know-how found in these parts And vague attempts of resistance He pulls her stumbling into the park. :.i;* :.,:i
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And oh, thudthud tweet-tweet ho-ho. With one bare foot on your way home And a fool's shoe on the other soul You clutch your echo and your withered rose,
Nihilism bv Anonvmous From godless universities,family-less homes, and cultureless and vacant towns issue forth once theirbodies have grown up minds like big lumps of red-grey clay; highly impressionable and susceptible to depression. The phantasmagoria of experience; the shifting dome of pure color over man's stony incarnations of geometry and over the infinitesimal plant pieces and the mobile, fleshy, lanky things we are physically, gesticulating, contorting the parts of the face, and producing sounds; does nothing to inform the mind, but rather only bombards it indifferently. The world of ideas, wherein the western hemisphere we exalt in our grand dichotomous metropolises and in the leaning tower of lire that is science, is no more real. And the mind can do nothing to learn its own best shape, when contradictorily one can do nothing but assume that one desires more than all else the truth.
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In seemingly impenetrable darkness, Hanging heavy, Potent words from a decrepit frame, Cuts of meat swaying in animated cascades, A small light threatens to envelop your thoughts toward elation. Beating repetitive rhythms, A lifetime's chore, tiling impure thoughts, Golden seamed ceramic of hard rational casing, so dependable and servile, Trapped from society's scrutiny, -: Hiding, lost thickets and naked, Brown and green, leaves veined in complexity, You forget their beauty before you even attempt to comprehend them. Give me a beggars bowl, I'll spit out your, Unwholesome charity, I have some hours left before I lick mortality's sweaty nape, Sweetened fig and deliciously tempting, Oh such atreat an elegant hexameter for the tongue, I'll entomb that embryonic feeling, Wait, not so literal as Canaan, Jam that unending crevice of empathy with some unctuous cwrency, Wealth unimaginable, What use is the abstract? The beggar in me, the seconds tick and that nape, A scent of rotten figs, How can I chain this gold, Into wealth after old age is ffansgressed? That weight, Stone of varying form and weight, But as present as your eventual death, Pressing, crushing every part, So greedy for more, Fill it with new mass Sisyphus, Clots of muddy apathy, bake rock hard, heavy Unburdened thoughts, Comprehend and know,
Know a little, Wrestle and fight, break yourself into pieces, Rain from high onto a thousand minds, And inflame their crevices with particles, pregnant with potential. Scatter your crippled flesh so far that it is no longer a distinct, nor a whole, Just thoughts, temporal consumption, transmutate, Here, gone, firmamento volumes fixed and labile, forever a light in those places, Too dark to imagine.
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