January 19th, 2010 / 6:47 pm
Contests
Roxane Gay
Contests
How Do You Take Yourself Apart?
Aaron Burch’s How To Take Yourself Apart, How To Make Yourself Anew is now available and is currently shipping. All proceeds from sales between now and 2/13 will be donated to the American Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières but this isn’t about that, necessarily. A generous benefactor has purchased five copies of the chapbook for us to giveaway.
To enter the drawing, leave a comment on this post between now and Friday at noon answering the question “How Do You Take Yourself Apart?”
We’ll choose our five favorite answers and those individuals will receive a copy of this sexy little piece of work.
Tags: Aaron Burch, PANK, Red Cross
I take myself apart with gusto. It all starts with music. Loud, heavy, fast music. Acidbath is nice for a good cleansing. Then I get sweaty. I wear too much clothing and mosh around myself careful to not elbow anyone. When my legs can’t take another step I find a soft thing. A couch usually works. I work the sweat into my scalp with my fingertips. Then, work on my toes. They need a good beating. I drink tea to keep the sweat up. Earl Grey. I wait until I get dizzy when I stand before having a lukewarm shower. I imagine all the shower stalls I’ve ever been in and realize that this is the best one.
I take myself apart with gusto. It all starts with music. Loud, heavy, fast music. Acidbath is nice for a good cleansing. Then I get sweaty. I wear too much clothing and mosh around myself careful to not elbow anyone. When my legs can’t take another step I find a soft thing. A couch usually works. I work the sweat into my scalp with my fingertips. Then, work on my toes. They need a good beating. I drink tea to keep the sweat up. Earl Grey. I wait until I get dizzy when I stand before having a lukewarm shower. I imagine all the shower stalls I’ve ever been in and realize that this is the best one.
With tongs. With tongs and tweezers and specially-built stainless-steel bowls shaped like kidneys or staple guns or fire trucks. In a wrought-iron rack from Versailles. It is painted blue. I take parts that no one will use–eyelids, toenails, my ring–put them in one or the other bowl and throw it into the corner. They pile. Hair spills out, covers everything.
If this is not who I wanted, maybe there is something underneath. Maybe there is something I will put on a billboard, reconstruct in the center of a fountain downtown in summer. Maybe children will dance in it, maybe they will take it apart again, rebuild it in the shape of a house, say, “When dinner is done,” and hold hands. Maybe they will step on the welcome mat, go inside, and curl up together. Maybe they will find my spleen or a knuckle. Maybe they will boil them down and offer it to the beggars.
Maybe we will take I/us apart together. Maybe there will be rejoicing.
With tongs. With tongs and tweezers and specially-built stainless-steel bowls shaped like kidneys or staple guns or fire trucks. In a wrought-iron rack from Versailles. It is painted blue. I take parts that no one will use–eyelids, toenails, my ring–put them in one or the other bowl and throw it into the corner. They pile. Hair spills out, covers everything.
If this is not who I wanted, maybe there is something underneath. Maybe there is something I will put on a billboard, reconstruct in the center of a fountain downtown in summer. Maybe children will dance in it, maybe they will take it apart again, rebuild it in the shape of a house, say, “When dinner is done,” and hold hands. Maybe they will step on the welcome mat, go inside, and curl up together. Maybe they will find my spleen or a knuckle. Maybe they will boil them down and offer it to the beggars.
Maybe we will take I/us apart together. Maybe there will be rejoicing.
If I hadn’t already pre-ordered, I’d tell you how I took myself apart. But I don’t need to! Mine’s coming soon! I’m so psyched!
If I hadn’t already pre-ordered, I’d tell you how I took myself apart. But I don’t need to! Mine’s coming soon! I’m so psyched!
Start with failure. Buckets of it. Fill the buckets that once held failure with self-doubt–and then use them as well. That and a sophomoric dream of 21st century success should be plenty to rip skin from muscle, muscle from bone, and snap the sinew that binds us to ourselves.
Putting it back together is more a matter of reframing. Embrace your role as a consumer and cog with vigor. Say yes to every capricious purchase. Shop to forget the tragedy of yourself. Pretend the job you have is the one you want. Buy a big, empty house and fill it with children you’ll never know. Get jet-skis, a 5th wheel. Vote for empire, for multi-generational wealth (on the off chance you ever achieve it). Abuse anti-depressants. Pursue frivolous litigation. Be put upon. Spend you days in drive-thru queues; your nights on urban survival forums debating the necessary contents of the perfect bugout bag, hidden mountain caches, endless SHTF scenarios, and thumping your bible louder than a heathen gong.
Start with failure. Buckets of it. Fill the buckets that once held failure with self-doubt–and then use them as well. That and a sophomoric dream of 21st century success should be plenty to rip skin from muscle, muscle from bone, and snap the sinew that binds us to ourselves.
Putting it back together is more a matter of reframing. Embrace your role as a consumer and cog with vigor. Say yes to every capricious purchase. Shop to forget the tragedy of yourself. Pretend the job you have is the one you want. Buy a big, empty house and fill it with children you’ll never know. Get jet-skis, a 5th wheel. Vote for empire, for multi-generational wealth (on the off chance you ever achieve it). Abuse anti-depressants. Pursue frivolous litigation. Be put upon. Spend you days in drive-thru queues; your nights on urban survival forums debating the necessary contents of the perfect bugout bag, hidden mountain caches, endless SHTF scenarios, and thumping your bible louder than a heathen gong.
I take myself apart by teaching you to snap your fingers. Snap them like so and I take myself apart. I take myself apart at the knees at the snap of your fingers. I take myself apart with my hands. I pull my kneecaps hard until I am in pieces. Everything is there but the kneecaps, which don’t survive the process. I take myself apart like so, at your command. I wonder if you will put me back together. Will you put me back together? Answer me.
I take myself apart by teaching you to snap your fingers. Snap them like so and I take myself apart. I take myself apart at the knees at the snap of your fingers. I take myself apart with my hands. I pull my kneecaps hard until I am in pieces. Everything is there but the kneecaps, which don’t survive the process. I take myself apart like so, at your command. I wonder if you will put me back together. Will you put me back together? Answer me.
Step one: remove all articles of clothing.
Step two: close eyes.
Step three: release flatulence.
* For instructions to put back together, see reverse side.
Step one: remove all articles of clothing.
Step two: close eyes.
Step three: release flatulence.
* For instructions to put back together, see reverse side.
Carefully, thoroughly, and under an unhealthy amount of local anesthetic.
Carefully, thoroughly, and under an unhealthy amount of local anesthetic.
Twice.
Twice.
me too! can’t wait to hold this one. it is a great book!
me too! can’t wait to hold this one. it is a great book!
One word at a time.
One word at a time.
Drawn and quartered by horses. Duh.
Drawn and quartered by horses. Duh.
This reminds me of a Chinese proverb. Here is my synopsis:
An emperor was enamored with the skill of his finest butcher. Every movement the butcher made was efficient and intentional, he cut through oxen with the greatest of ease, all while having not sharpened or changed his cleaver after carving 1000 oxen in nineteen years. When the emperor asked him how he achieved such great skill at his art, he replied [and I paraphrase], “What I have studied is beyond mere art. When I first began to cut up oxen, I saw them as huge, whole animals. Three years later, I had come to know the exact location of every part of their bodies– their bones, flesh, sinews, viscera, etc. I saw them no longer as whole animals. Now I work with my mind and not my eyes.”
The butcher further explained that instead of doing difficult things, he finds simplicity through understanding things as they are, and therefore difficult things become easy. Knowing the small spaces between the joints, subtle movements of a well honed blade disassembles even the most complex constructions. The emperor was stunned at the man’s explanation of the process he underwent to achieve his skill, exclaiming that he “learned the way to cultivate life from a lowly cook.”
In other words, while the process of taking one’s self apart can be recorded and studied, it can only truly be understood through doing it or experiencing the process through dedicated immersion and fearlessness in the face of (as H.McCreesh said) failure.
The way to do it is to do it till it’s done.
This reminds me of a Chinese proverb. Here is my synopsis:
An emperor was enamored with the skill of his finest butcher. Every movement the butcher made was efficient and intentional, he cut through oxen with the greatest of ease, all while having not sharpened or changed his cleaver after carving 1000 oxen in nineteen years. When the emperor asked him how he achieved such great skill at his art, he replied [and I paraphrase], “What I have studied is beyond mere art. When I first began to cut up oxen, I saw them as huge, whole animals. Three years later, I had come to know the exact location of every part of their bodies– their bones, flesh, sinews, viscera, etc. I saw them no longer as whole animals. Now I work with my mind and not my eyes.”
The butcher further explained that instead of doing difficult things, he finds simplicity through understanding things as they are, and therefore difficult things become easy. Knowing the small spaces between the joints, subtle movements of a well honed blade disassembles even the most complex constructions. The emperor was stunned at the man’s explanation of the process he underwent to achieve his skill, exclaiming that he “learned the way to cultivate life from a lowly cook.”
In other words, while the process of taking one’s self apart can be recorded and studied, it can only truly be understood through doing it or experiencing the process through dedicated immersion and fearlessness in the face of (as H.McCreesh said) failure.
The way to do it is to do it till it’s done.
I take myself apart as planned. Not by thinking to myself, not Ever, not by scorching an Atlas. Atlas has thighs, first of all, a beard, second of all, and a throb, third of all. Burning topographies, they follow my dissemination in ash. There’s the map, the plan.
Atlas reads it outloud: “run the blade of the boning knife along the belly. Cut through the neck, and then pull the head away from the body quickly. This should ensure that the guts come along with the head. Rinse the gut-cavity.”
I take myself apart as planned. Not by thinking to myself, not Ever, not by scorching an Atlas. Atlas has thighs, first of all, a beard, second of all, and a throb, third of all. Burning topographies, they follow my dissemination in ash. There’s the map, the plan.
Atlas reads it outloud: “run the blade of the boning knife along the belly. Cut through the neck, and then pull the head away from the body quickly. This should ensure that the guts come along with the head. Rinse the gut-cavity.”
gradually and then suddenly
gradually and then suddenly
I take myself aprt vow l b v w l, th n conso a y o o a , a en er tl is ef .
I take myself aprt vow l b v w l, th n conso a y o o a , a en er tl is ef .
For a long time, I didn’t. I just selected words from the surface of my skin and glued them carefully – with tweezers and toothpicks – onto the page. They were pretty. They flowed nicely.
Then slowly, after losing my father and falling in love and covering my scars with tattoos, I dug the tweezers in a little further. I told terrible, horrible secrets. I laid everyone bare and I didn’t change names and I told everyone what I really thought about everything. It was ugly and it didn’t flow.
But no-one cared. The police didn’t come knocking and my friends didn’t try to bash my head in and my girlfriend still wanted to fall asleep beside me. So I wrote more secrets and even made some up because I ran out. It started to get a bit prettier, even though the edges were still fraying. I crawled in-between, and I dug in my toes.
And now here I am, taken apart and glued together, and it’s all okay.
For a long time, I didn’t. I just selected words from the surface of my skin and glued them carefully – with tweezers and toothpicks – onto the page. They were pretty. They flowed nicely.
Then slowly, after losing my father and falling in love and covering my scars with tattoos, I dug the tweezers in a little further. I told terrible, horrible secrets. I laid everyone bare and I didn’t change names and I told everyone what I really thought about everything. It was ugly and it didn’t flow.
But no-one cared. The police didn’t come knocking and my friends didn’t try to bash my head in and my girlfriend still wanted to fall asleep beside me. So I wrote more secrets and even made some up because I ran out. It started to get a bit prettier, even though the edges were still fraying. I crawled in-between, and I dug in my toes.
And now here I am, taken apart and glued together, and it’s all okay.
[…] won something from us wins. Also, if you’re looking to snag a free copy of our chapbook, go here to learn more about how to make that […]
A machete doubling as a comb
A waste paper basket
My two favorite pictures of my deceased grandma
6 matches, like uncooked spaghetti
A machete doubling as a comb
A waste paper basket
My two favorite pictures of my deceased grandma
6 matches, like uncooked spaghetti
a bottle of wine and 60 mg of morphine
a bottle of wine and 60 mg of morphine
So excited for Aaron on this, it looks great.
HOW I TAKE MYSELF APART
I try to do something larger than myself, I stretch and grow, I expand into the space around me, however large it may be. Soon enough, I am beaten down, ridiculaed, rejected, I am reduced, I am broken apart into a million sharp little pieces and buried under the soil. Broken down, I can be reborn, and in that there is strength.
So excited for Aaron on this, it looks great.
HOW I TAKE MYSELF APART
I try to do something larger than myself, I stretch and grow, I expand into the space around me, however large it may be. Soon enough, I am beaten down, ridiculaed, rejected, I am reduced, I am broken apart into a million sharp little pieces and buried under the soil. Broken down, I can be reborn, and in that there is strength.
The question is not HOW one takes oneself apart, but WITH WHOM. And my friends, I’d take myself apart (decisively and con gusto (re: how)) with every last one of you, and we’d throw all our pieces in a big dough-spinner and give it a good shake, then redistribute them at random so that we didn’t know the backs of our hands very well at all.
The book looks fabulous. Huzzah for Aaron!
The question is not HOW one takes oneself apart, but WITH WHOM. And my friends, I’d take myself apart (decisively and con gusto (re: how)) with every last one of you, and we’d throw all our pieces in a big dough-spinner and give it a good shake, then redistribute them at random so that we didn’t know the backs of our hands very well at all.
The book looks fabulous. Huzzah for Aaron!
My mother would take herself apart by first making a pitcher of mimosas and lighting a Virginia Slims. She’d sit on the back porch and watch time like a physicist divining how space and time are relative and our perceptions of either (or both) merely figments. It was a slow, steady removal.
My father, by opening all six cans of a six-pack (Budweiser, natch), lighting up an entire pack of Marlboro Reds and driving, full-tilt, on the freeway. His was a particularly brazen, dangerous method. The Evel Knievel of taking oneself apart.
Me? I take myself apart in ways not considered by either. A little of me is removed with each word I write. A little with each word I read. Ulysses took be nearly completely apart. The collected poems of Mark Strand finished me off. A short story written early in the morning takes a few layers off the side, a love handle perhaps. Two chapters of a novel written late at night, drunk, remove a foot up to the ankle. Soon, regardless of the method, there will nothing left of any of us, and the how of it all will have been forgotten.
My mother would take herself apart by first making a pitcher of mimosas and lighting a Virginia Slims. She’d sit on the back porch and watch time like a physicist divining how space and time are relative and our perceptions of either (or both) merely figments. It was a slow, steady removal.
My father, by opening all six cans of a six-pack (Budweiser, natch), lighting up an entire pack of Marlboro Reds and driving, full-tilt, on the freeway. His was a particularly brazen, dangerous method. The Evel Knievel of taking oneself apart.
Me? I take myself apart in ways not considered by either. A little of me is removed with each word I write. A little with each word I read. Ulysses took be nearly completely apart. The collected poems of Mark Strand finished me off. A short story written early in the morning takes a few layers off the side, a love handle perhaps. Two chapters of a novel written late at night, drunk, remove a foot up to the ankle. Soon, regardless of the method, there will nothing left of any of us, and the how of it all will have been forgotten.
We have made love all morning and can wait
no longer. My hand searches down,
past your navel, finding the zipper
we’ve installed. A gentle pull
and your belly parts
like ripe fruit, breasts resting
gratefully on either side of the bed.
Your face slips atop your head
smoothly as a ski cap.
This is easier
than we’d imagined.
Your skull parts in perfect silhouette; brain
pulsing smartly, gray like the shoreline sky
last weekend when it rained. Your ribs creak
open like gates in need of oiling; your heart
shivers beneath my touch.
I breathe in,
will myself smaller–just
like we’ve practiced. Feet first, I slide
inside, slipping you on
the way my mother taught me not
to put on stockings: my toes fill yours
with faint pops, sole to sole.
My bottom against your more shapely one,
our spines click, vertebra by vertebra,
into place and I lie back into the concave welcome
of your skull. As for your arms–
the only evening gloves I’d ever wear–
my fingers nestle into yours.
With our two hands, we rejoin
all that was put asunder. And only now,
with your thoughts shooting
like stars across my eyes, with your heart
beating into mine and my hands
truly in yours, are we even close
to close enough.
We have made love all morning and can wait
no longer. My hand searches down,
past your navel, finding the zipper
we’ve installed. A gentle pull
and your belly parts
like ripe fruit, breasts resting
gratefully on either side of the bed.
Your face slips atop your head
smoothly as a ski cap.
This is easier
than we’d imagined.
Your skull parts in perfect silhouette; brain
pulsing smartly, gray like the shoreline sky
last weekend when it rained. Your ribs creak
open like gates in need of oiling; your heart
shivers beneath my touch.
I breathe in,
will myself smaller–just
like we’ve practiced. Feet first, I slide
inside, slipping you on
the way my mother taught me not
to put on stockings: my toes fill yours
with faint pops, sole to sole.
My bottom against your more shapely one,
our spines click, vertebra by vertebra,
into place and I lie back into the concave welcome
of your skull. As for your arms–
the only evening gloves I’d ever wear–
my fingers nestle into yours.
With our two hands, we rejoin
all that was put asunder. And only now,
with your thoughts shooting
like stars across my eyes, with your heart
beating into mine and my hands
truly in yours, are we even close
to close enough.
By not allowing myself to come together.
By not allowing myself to come together.
i take myself apart with the image of the other’s body taking pixels from his own until i can reconstruct mine as nothing, photoshop clone tool i can lose myself into his image without really feeling, without doing anything but floating up, gazing into the glow. the problem is when i find myself again somewhere that i don’t want to be found at the bottom of an image dump what i thought was lost floats to the surface until i FREEZE MY BODY UNDER ICE, PICK-AXE ME TO CUBES FOR A COCKTAIL find it again and tell myself: no you are no longer a body you are only an idea so push away from it again, erase myself is how i take m e apart, find a new answer somewhere else when COVER ME IN HONEY AND LEAVE ME IN A FOREST FULL OF BEARS i am already nothing but an image, here, in this place, so the idea is to relocate until i’m too corrupted glitched out to be more than the ghosted remain of a jpeg found on a geocities website in 1996.
i take myself apart with the image of the other’s body taking pixels from his own until i can reconstruct mine as nothing, photoshop clone tool i can lose myself into his image without really feeling, without doing anything but floating up, gazing into the glow. the problem is when i find myself again somewhere that i don’t want to be found at the bottom of an image dump what i thought was lost floats to the surface until i FREEZE MY BODY UNDER ICE, PICK-AXE ME TO CUBES FOR A COCKTAIL find it again and tell myself: no you are no longer a body you are only an idea so push away from it again, erase myself is how i take m e apart, find a new answer somewhere else when COVER ME IN HONEY AND LEAVE ME IN A FOREST FULL OF BEARS i am already nothing but an image, here, in this place, so the idea is to relocate until i’m too corrupted glitched out to be more than the ghosted remain of a jpeg found on a geocities website in 1996.
I enter and win a mustache competition. Anarchy ensues in Circle K.
I enter and win a mustache competition. Anarchy ensues in Circle K.
Tiptoe gently avoiding the army of pitbulls chained and sleeping past compacted heaps of chrome and waste, dig through a pile and another pile, say hi Mr radiator, then shove it in a burlap sack along with the thermostat.
Tiptoe gently avoiding the army of pitbulls chained and sleeping past compacted heaps of chrome and waste, dig through a pile and another pile, say hi Mr radiator, then shove it in a burlap sack along with the thermostat.
Only with sterilized surgical instruments.
Only with sterilized surgical instruments.
I call my dad, tell him the things I believe, and stay quiet while he explains my dreams are youthful, arrogant, and unAmerican.
I call my dad, tell him the things I believe, and stay quiet while he explains my dreams are youthful, arrogant, and unAmerican.
I take myself apart with discipline and precision. The page wants to stay white.
I take myself apart with discipline and precision. The page wants to stay white.
Pozole
Take each line
each false line
dip it in lye
dissolve it
do not taunt it
the horror
no epiphanies
Pozole
Take each line
each false line
dip it in lye
dissolve it
do not taunt it
the horror
no epiphanies
How do I take myself apart?
I undue the tight and unforgiving leather and velcro belt, slide my right thigh out of the polypropylene socket, snap the knee joint into the upright position so that the limb can lean safely against a piece of furniture, pull the three protective socks off my thigh, and then sit down quickly before I fall over. But I certainly feel quite taken apart, yes.
[This is a true story, natch.]
How do I take myself apart?
I undue the tight and unforgiving leather and velcro belt, slide my right thigh out of the polypropylene socket, snap the knee joint into the upright position so that the limb can lean safely against a piece of furniture, pull the three protective socks off my thigh, and then sit down quickly before I fall over. But I certainly feel quite taken apart, yes.
[This is a true story, natch.]
“how do i take myself apart?”, you say. hmm.
first, there would need to be some awareness that i am not whole. that moving parts do exist beneath the exterior and they can be taken apart. awareness is key.
second, there would need to be motivation to take myself apart, something positive or forward progressing i guess. something that has parts can become torpid and ineffective too. so either the taking apart is done out of necessity or improvement. the two are sort of interchangeable i think.
the question is sort of ambiguous. so i should define the “you” and the “yourself”.
“you” is my consciousness and “yourself” is my identity for lack of a better term. but it would be an inner-identity, self purview sort of shit.
in essence you are asking, as i perceive it, is “how do i change the way i view myself and thus change the entire makeup of who ‘i’ am.”
i guess the real motivation here is freedom. freedom is synonymous with destruction for if you desire true freedom from something you desire destruction of the thing that fetters you.
this thing being your self image.
the easiest manifestation of freedom as it is in comparison to negative identity is self-destructive acts.
people can find no other recourse than destruction. this is not the way.
yes it would be easy to burn a tree because you detest the tree.
but a person of just heart should look at the tree and desire to no longer hate it but to love it eventually.
the tree isn’t the issue at all. but the expectations of what a tree is supposed to be.
so simply, to take myself apart, i must let go of all expectations and view my reality in a certain neutral way (true neutrality being unobtainable due to my inherent nature to fail as a human being).
awareness being paramount to all things and an understanding that awareness is not off/on but off/on/+1/+2/+3 and etc.
so my question back is “why do you think you have accomplished anything other than ‘newness’?”
if you can answer that question to a degree i am content with i’ll buy 5 copies of his book to give out.
“how do i take myself apart?”, you say. hmm.
first, there would need to be some awareness that i am not whole. that moving parts do exist beneath the exterior and they can be taken apart. awareness is key.
second, there would need to be motivation to take myself apart, something positive or forward progressing i guess. something that has parts can become torpid and ineffective too. so either the taking apart is done out of necessity or improvement. the two are sort of interchangeable i think.
the question is sort of ambiguous. so i should define the “you” and the “yourself”.
“you” is my consciousness and “yourself” is my identity for lack of a better term. but it would be an inner-identity, self purview sort of shit.
in essence you are asking, as i perceive it, is “how do i change the way i view myself and thus change the entire makeup of who ‘i’ am.”
i guess the real motivation here is freedom. freedom is synonymous with destruction for if you desire true freedom from something you desire destruction of the thing that fetters you.
this thing being your self image.
the easiest manifestation of freedom as it is in comparison to negative identity is self-destructive acts.
people can find no other recourse than destruction. this is not the way.
yes it would be easy to burn a tree because you detest the tree.
but a person of just heart should look at the tree and desire to no longer hate it but to love it eventually.
the tree isn’t the issue at all. but the expectations of what a tree is supposed to be.
so simply, to take myself apart, i must let go of all expectations and view my reality in a certain neutral way (true neutrality being unobtainable due to my inherent nature to fail as a human being).
awareness being paramount to all things and an understanding that awareness is not off/on but off/on/+1/+2/+3 and etc.
so my question back is “why do you think you have accomplished anything other than ‘newness’?”
if you can answer that question to a degree i am content with i’ll buy 5 copies of his book to give out.
“his book” being aaron burch’s book of discussion.
“his book” being aaron burch’s book of discussion.
with a hammer.
i put myself on a wood stove. stretch my fingers. stretch my back. stretch my toes. i reach over the knob. turn it off. i reach out to the cutting board. i place myself on the cutting board. i slant myself on the cutting board. i lift the hammer. i lift it high. as high as my eyebrows. i lift my skirt up. i lift my skirt up with the other unused hand. i lift it up for the view. i lift the skirt. i lift the hammer. the hammer falls…
i change my mind: correction.
with a hatchet.
i take myself apart with a hatchet.
i put myself on the wood stove….
with a hammer.
i put myself on a wood stove. stretch my fingers. stretch my back. stretch my toes. i reach over the knob. turn it off. i reach out to the cutting board. i place myself on the cutting board. i slant myself on the cutting board. i lift the hammer. i lift it high. as high as my eyebrows. i lift my skirt up. i lift my skirt up with the other unused hand. i lift it up for the view. i lift the skirt. i lift the hammer. the hammer falls…
i change my mind: correction.
with a hatchet.
i take myself apart with a hatchet.
i put myself on the wood stove….
I take myself apart to practice the art of meat origami. I have the guts to say, this swan is made of me. Look, a horseshoe crab. A President Lincoln. It takes patience to present ourselves as denervated. If you can wait, I’ll let you take home the butcher paper.
I take myself apart to practice the art of meat origami. I have the guts to say, this swan is made of me. Look, a horseshoe crab. A President Lincoln. It takes patience to present ourselves as denervated. If you can wait, I’ll let you take home the butcher paper.
Reborn, brothers, you burn, turn toward trying to forget, to feel again: a gone gift you hadn’t built wasn’t thought up: your sisters, cartons, a kinship, your possible past: you’ve missed, remember, their makeshift moment: time them; film time; fall, crash, directly into fact; ask, caladrius; look, milk your last sun myth: eyes looking up, caladrius, past your curse, you’ve thought out heat, you’ve noticed: others saw their push away: layer water over outer strength: periscope: fly away feeling: feel: fall: follow into kinship: push past the last brief having; even nest in that new cut sun then plummet up: remember and tuck, cleansed, into ascent, weak eagle.
Reborn, brothers, you burn, turn toward trying to forget, to feel again: a gone gift you hadn’t built wasn’t thought up: your sisters, cartons, a kinship, your possible past: you’ve missed, remember, their makeshift moment: time them; film time; fall, crash, directly into fact; ask, caladrius; look, milk your last sun myth: eyes looking up, caladrius, past your curse, you’ve thought out heat, you’ve noticed: others saw their push away: layer water over outer strength: periscope: fly away feeling: feel: fall: follow into kinship: push past the last brief having; even nest in that new cut sun then plummet up: remember and tuck, cleansed, into ascent, weak eagle.
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damn
damn