I haven’t had a computer for two months so you have been without my words, my apologies.

Also,

I got my nips pierced this weekend because I’m so xXxHXCthuglyfexXx like that.

Get some.  

I am made of strips of rubber

bands that snap when seperated.

That I am malleable I confide: 

It’s easier to break this way.

Who assumes the solidarity?

Rounded wholeness may imply

if you bounce from every surface,

could anything effect you then? 

I am frayed and segregated 

each multi-colored tacit 

cracked from stretching thin

but never taught; I am not

a shape but many, all,

say otherwise

Now despair for your mortal life, voidlings. 

I would just like to send out a heartfelt fuck you to my dear University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Thank you, theater professors, for destroying my self confidence. Reminding me every day that I will never be good enough to make it in the field. I am so glad I’m now so wonderfully talented at analyzing text, that’s going to put food on my fucking table. Enjoy my tens of thousands of dollars you fucking scum. I’ll take my individually computer signed piece of paper now.

MY WEALTH AND SKILLS ARE A FAR SUPERIOR PROXY FOR MATING SUITABILITY THAN YOUR WEALTH AND SKILLS AND MY ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE IS LOUDER THAN YOURS WHICH PROVES THIS FACT. 

        You capture a moment

    emotion

                            action

In a sound.

          Pen on paper
    and then.

     Space

 You see the moment.
Which one

     Space

   Pen on paper? Or
You see the moment.

     Now
                              or

                            Then? 

   (         )

Action moment, you see the moment.                                                (Space)

    See action pen, in a sound. On paper?

       Then? Action you see the moment. Which

           one action, the moment you see the moment,

               or action. One sound. On paper?

                   Space.             Action which,              Space. 

Venice, 1864. 

Stapled to the splintering 

Raft, 

The mercy of the scarlet

Sea

Proved a wish as scorn and

Daft

As any dreamers hope could

Be

A man with a gun stands on a bridge.

His bed of flotsam cast

Awry 

With lungs submerged in foam and

Wave

He drank beneath the hollow

Sky

Another man sings as he passes beneath. 

The rusted nails that held him

Cut

Beyond the swells approached at

Last

A vacant vessel did

Abut

It’s phantom captain watched from

Aft

La mia amore non è del mondo.

With rotting planks and blistered

Sails

This Chernabog upon the 

Surf

Did break his sleep to much

Avail 

Such dreams had not been things of

Mirth

A man with a gun whispers to the wind. “Esprime un desiderio, Valeria.”

The cackling maw upon its

Prow 

With dagger teeth did swallow

Whole

Acerbus Nox within its 

Scowl 

And to the depths was lost to

All

Who darkens Death’s door? 

“One who does not fear him!”

You will know fear at length

“Of this I have known and forgotten.”

Enter.

And lo across the threshold Acerbus Nox awakened. With no hand to hold he stumbled into being, thrust forth from the land of the half-lived into the land of the half-loved. Seven ebony towers spiraled up before him as he accelerated to meet with the ground. The air he breathed became molten stone in his chest. A snowy raven perched upon his shoulder whispered softly to him:

 The last sleep? No- the final awakening.

 The earth fissured before him and birthed a seven headed demon. Its eyes were of chiseled diamond and its feet grew roots of ancient trees. From its jaws erupted the cacophony of seven thousand jilted lovers, each in it’s solitary lament. He made to scream and watched the sound leave him encased in a translucent sphere of suffering; no sound was made, though he envied his creation. Something simple and pure, the aural manifestation of fear. He wished to join himself with it. To live within and become it. Seven thousand dirges pierced his ears and seven thousand sorrows nested within him. It came to pass that he could withstand no longer. There he leapt into the whole of the earth, there the abyss consumed him, and there he died one and seven thousand deaths. Once more Acerbus Nox was no more. 

Who darkens Death’s door?

“One who has known love and loss.”

He speaks of things he will not know again.

“He speaks of things he would never wish to.”

Enter.

Translated from the Ledger of one Acerbus Nox 4/11/1874

I am reminded of a storefront I once passed as a boy. 

Hanging about the wax apples 

and assorted trinkets is a dozen marionetts in the fashion

of jaded pirates. 

Hunched over they spin half circles and rock to and fro 

gently as if kissed by the wind. 

Their wooden cutlasses sag in their sheaths. 

Fake painted blood edges the woodsteel weapons and clings

to their woolwire beards

chipped and lazy. 

So fresh it drips to the floor of the display and pools 

up causing the figures to look more like a trove of hanged men in an apple tree 

than children’s puppets. 

In fact, I recall there is a sign tacked above them reading 

“Pirates ye be warned” 

I wonder if the artisan continues to make them

or if he is scared off, 

the sight of his wooden men pale and cracked and drawn and strung up and jointed and left to rot in the window of a trinket store tourist trap.

The Bay of Sicilia is a precarious place. 

Who darkens Death’s door?

“One who would return!”

Ah, but you have returned. 

“Send me back!”

Then enter.

     Venice, 1866

Whispers descended soft upon the sheets, pooling crimson with bittersweet tears.

“Che cosa è l’amore?”

She could find no sleep that night.

“Che cosa non la è, la mia Valeria?”

Starlight drifted through the open window like the melody of a midnight bard.

“Ma che cosa la è, Acerbus.”

He was silent for some time. 

“Non so, Io non sono qui.”

Of this, he did not lie.

“Allora, sono perduto senza di te”

And neither did she.

“Avete un cuore forte, Valeria”

Her tremors were felt from Rome to Firenze. 

“Non ho visto il mio cuore dato che hai lasciato.

The city slumbered. 

“Lo travero, bella. Io prometto. 

And none but Death heard his promise.

“Dove sei Acerbus?”

She whispered to the wind.

“Sono con tu.”

Of this, he lied.

“Che cosa è l’amore, Acerbus?”

The strings of being thrummed once more into darkness.

“Tu eri, Valeria, tu eri.”

Who darkens Death’s door?

“You know who I am.”

And back so soon? I didn’t think you had the heart, not anymore.

“I would sunder it a thousand times before I give up.”

Indeed you will, enter. 

Venice, 1877

There she is. Years I have waited, searching every corner of the Mediterranean. It is impossible and yet there she is. I have her heart, my Valeria, I found as I promised. The sea drank from my body and stole from me every plank and possession. One and one thousand times I have suffered, torn myself to ash and having lost the will to love, at last, there she is. But now I am cold, I can hardly recognize her. She is incorporeal and her outline recedes like a tide as I watch her. It was all for naught, and yet I give her what is hers, and we walk back to death, holding hands. 

What thing is love

That I cannot see nor hear it?

That one and one thousand lives

Could not suffer me to learn its secrets.

I would reduce it to bone-dust if only I had its coffin.

Che cosa è l’amore?

What thing is love?

Who darkens Death’s door?

One who’s not alone, anymore.

Out of our berths and into the void we floated:
Here and now, in the final frontier we are nothing.
As we have always been
And yet in a desperate act of self preservation
(for if there is one thing we are, it is afraid
of death)
We submitted ourselves to the abyss.

                Day 30:
        It is dark, all the time dark. We progress into the muted shores, a haven of         monochroma; I did not bring anything to write this ledger with.

I see one of our own (there are none others) tumble from the side of the hull upon impact with a sphere of swift-flighted deitrus. His lead snaps taught, he grabs it birthing a thick bassey thrum which reverberates down my spine like so many wavelengths fleeing the empty (they were)

                Day: 61
        I am reminded of a storefront I once passed as a boy. Hanging about the wax         apples and assorted trinkets were at least a bakers dozen marionetts in the fashion
        of jaded pirates. Hunched over they spun half circles and swung back and forth         gently as if kissed by the northern wind while their wooden cutlasses sagged in                 their sheaths. The fake painted blood that edged the woodsteel weapons and clung         to their woolwire beards was chipped and lazy, though in other cases was so fresh         it dripped to the floor of the display and pooled up causing the figures to look         more like a trove of hanged men in an apple tree than children’s puppets. In fact,         now that I recall there was a sign tacked above them reading “Pirates ye be         warned” I wonder if the craftsman continued to make them or if he was scared off
        by the sight of his wooden men pale and cracked and drawn and strung up and left         to rot in the window of a country store tourist trap.

When we sing (as instructed) it sounds like the hum of television static. We match the tones in a harmonious way. For us it is an experiment in sound wave dissent. How far can we bend our vocal chords until one of us snaps like a broken bow. I am a bowstring. I like that thought. I am a bowstring.

                Day 90:
        Should I not have starved to death? I prepared my body to sustain itself for 62         days only by consuming enough bananas to saturate my blood plasmodium         potassium receptors. At any rate we have arrived at our destination: there is         nothing here.  

Prepared to step from our vessel we braced in closure positions. The projected arc had taken us (tethered to the hull) directly into the atmosphere of an unidentified planet with a 13.9% chance of habitability. As we floated toward the cloudy blue mass we began to reorient, downward. We began to pick up speed, floating, floating, floating, falling, falling, falling toward the surface at the speed of waiting. Combustion was instant upon reaching terminal velocity. Incinerated we ended plummeting violently into the remarkable new landscape. I am dust upon impact.

Attempt a tactic that will result in procreation:
  Fail.
Buy some shit. 
      Change aesthetic.
      Rinse,
                                                     Repeat.

Maybe one day,
  and then you will be happy. 
        Then you will be happy. 
           Then you will be happy. 
                                                Then you will be happy.                                                                               Then you will be happy.                                                                                Then you will be happy.                                                                               Then you will be happy                                                                                 Then you will be happy.                                                                               Then you will be happy
                                                and everyone will love                                                                                       you will be happy 
                                                 
                                                   Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

Then you will be happy?

THEN YOU WILL BE FREE

Here I am. Beautiful. Untouched. This is truth, I am beautiful. The folly of the looking glass. Wild, untamed, gentle. I am beauty. Child of moon and water. Narrow, I am sharp- straight, yet flexible, as the daughter of southern arrow-wood. 

It is engendered: this is beauty. And I, an Echo. 

I stare. My longing an entrapment. How may I love such beauty while I am trapped within its reaches. How may I hold what holds me in its vice- flowers do not belong on workbenches. Like fruit within a rind, I am only seen with the intent of being consumed. Eyes that tear like inscisors into my side, and I, the blood orange bleed. Drip sweetly down their throats and never satiate. Citrus I will never taste, and still I stare- bleed.   

It is begotten: two faces in one spyglass. Mine behind yours. 

See this. My pupils expand first, later they contract. If I blink I am sure, I will miss a single goldenrod hair blown across my brow, the moment my lips part in wry smile. I would not forgive myself, when I opened my eyes again, I may be wrinkled. Dimples and hair recessed. Breasts sagging. Eyes sting in the wind and shift lavender and crimson. It is better this way: this way I cannot cry. 

It is abiding: to repeat these last three words. To be unable. 

I am the tides of man. She who forsakes love-lust, my own admirer. So that none other may look on in concupiscence- I, beauty, and I, my own. I will raise empires with my luster and reign diamonds. I will breath heaven and drink mountains, and all will watch me watch me and say

It is constant: It rips through me like WATER.

Pathetic, lecherous masses. And yet, to be pitied. They are not I, beauty. With my grace I will give them day so they may see me see me. With my mercy I will give them night, so they may dream irradiate. With my touch I will give them hope, but never pleasure. With my looking glass I will give them solidarity. 

It is decided: 

I will be passion, submerged in erubescence, those who will not look at me look at me. I will scream and shatter their looking glasses. I will flail and scratch out their eyes. I will sing and they will mourn. 

It is conceived: I will never be heard. 

Here I am. Genesis of the gods. Salt-sweat teardrops of a starflair- child of sun and air. A fissure in a cloud, and its predestined dew-drops. I am where forest meets sky- creation of life, and fruit of its grandure.

It is evanescent: If you remember one thing, remember, I needed you.