Little Crunchy Bits and Bitter Liquid

Little crunchy bits and bitter liquid felt around the back of the tongue; ‘you know, i think the little ones.. especially the brownish coppery ones.. they have the best balance… (crunch crunch) ..when you bite into those big grasshopper lookin’ things with the tick, or, larvae, sort of (crunch) sac (crunch) in the back, and they pop.. eesh… fills yer mouth with that bitter goo.. ee… i always pop ‘em first now, between my fingers… ya, no, both the sacs.. ya, no, you have to get both the sacs – the small one inside, up close to the head is stronger, tasting, than the big main one….’

Big breath in… push it out…

I continue to chew. Crushing and kneading the mass of insects into something more digestible.

I try to inhale, but, like a strong drink, the harsh vapors – that make one's nervous system cringe – from the small long red ones, with all the legs, make me cough, and choke.

I dream of a refreshing breath..

I should be taking refreshing breaths.. Instead, spit fills my mouth, and flows from it; dribbling out, falling onto my chest, and bare feet.. and mold, in all the colors imaginable, coats every part of me – inside and out – and finds residence in every square millimeter of my lungs, mouth and throat..

I curl my toes and grit my teeth at the hard crust of the earth… a particularly vibrant purply-blue patch…

A smile creeps into the muscles around my mouth, and settles in the folds of my mind..

It's funny how, in a deep and old bitterness, rage and hilarity become so similar, and flow so seamlessly into one another.. that it becomes so difficult to sense any inherent distinction.. It becomes a sort of ‘life, on a pendulum’.. on a spectrum of… purple.. maybe… i guess.. i don’t know…

Or maybe it's simply tragic; A sign of how far the perversion of one’s mind has indeed come..(?)

‘ahhheeeee… i don't know if i should worry about that too much if i can help it…’

Eyes wide now, and suddenly.. i bring my foot up… ‘AHHH!!!’ i stomp hard in rage/glee and a giant cloud of mold erupts from the hole in the crust.

Burning in my eyes and lungs; ‘AHH!!!?!’

I cry out…

Falling, running, stumbling, scraping myself away…

…………………..

(Memories of) You (filling my mind)

“Hahaha”

You laugh; i love, you.. and your laugh… how can i fixate upon such a small aspect of you?

‘It’s the mystery, of you…’ i guess…

‘I love your laughter out of some, vain, social interest in behavior…’ i lie to myself… i want desperately to lose myself in your laughter, or in how you can look at me for so long… in genuity… What is wrong with me?

I feel inadequate…

And all this is too much to take in in this short a time span and i look away… i can't have actually processed all of that… can i?

Time is strange.. right now…

I meet your gaze again…

My anxiety clues just how ‘unready’ i was…

You gaze, still, into me…

……..

I open my eyes.

You sleep still and i manage to climb into the shower without waking you.

I can’t escape thoughts and the deep ache of how i (will?) miss you, as the hot water beats on the back of my neck.

…….

I stand by the door and open and start to close it a few times as i try to realize how best to leave.. you…

‘Fuck’

I shut the door and turn to walk away down the hall.

‘Fuck’

I turn around and unlock our door and walk back inside.

I lock the door and take off my clothes and lay down next to you, and stroke your hair as you sleep.

It seems like you smile a bit… at least at the edges of your eyes…

…………………..

In total, we get two more meals together, 27 more laughs, 16 more kisses,and 2 more arguments before i leave for the last time. I still feel your last kiss though, and hear the, ‘I love you’ from your lips. I think i may be embellishing upon the look in your eye that i seem to recall… maybe not though… and that promise feels good. And sometimes that's ok.. right? ..or..(?)

…………………..

All i hear is my breath.. reflected in the speakers of my helmet…

My steps, making the peripherals of my gaze on the darkness in front of me…

My visor fogs for half a second after each breath i take; i swear i’m standing, still, in front of our bathroom mirror, after our shower….

…………………..

I come to, running across the orange valley, into the lights.

I stop. Breathing hard; dry throughout my lungs, throat and mouth; even the bitter saliva from the bugs has become a crust upon me..

Is there horror that should be felt, at the raw sight before me?

...it has to be my circumstance... it must be...

My eyes feel like i have never once blinked in my life, and are doomed to become just as petrified as the crust of this rotting planet.

Fuckin’ shit.

What does it mean, to be kept from one’s home, by… Fuck.. Fuck this!

A deep breath in; i push it out as far as i can…

‘I can't even blame anybody!? HA.. OR!??’ Can't blame circumstance, or considerate judgement… ignorance, though, and clean and pure dogmatic servitude: ‘HA!’ Survival, at all costs… interesting, anyway…

Or maybe, it's privilege, really, masquerading…(?) When i close my eyes, and my breathing slows, sometimes, maybe right after i wake up, or just before i fall asleep, i feel as though i can reach out, and peel that mask away; finally gaze upon the face i knew to be there, and watch them in their recognition of what is real; watch them understand their much faulted experience of life…

Vulnerability, though, revealed in this dream, as the missing and paradigmatically affective facet, remains too idealistic for the frothing seething fleshy mass that I know to be human desperation.

I shake and let out a roar as i cover the final distance to the lighted complex.

The hairs on my skin begin to sizzle and burn and i am forced to close my eyes as i close in, but i don't stop.

White and red hot infinity is my death.

………..

But as I die, I cannot help but feel that subtle shift that comes as humans die and my connection through them, to the world, fades. I ‘feel’, in a different way; ‘think’ in some unknown manner; all of these things that might exclusively make me ‘live’, occur in some abstract, complex way, and, really, I am not even sure myself, if I am completely honest, if I am alive..

But Steven was.

And I feel as though that was an important start..

Of all that I have learned about life and experience, through all of the life forms on this planet… there is more still, that I must understand..

Why, do they hide in that lighted.. Complex?

Why, do they seek some way to get rid of me?

I do no real harm to them.. Even if they propagate some experience of hatred towards me…

I exist in no small part due to them, and their lives long ago…

I am but spores, in the wind, in their minds, in the dirt of this planet… But I live; as them, at times, and in other ways.. A pendulous life.. on some unknown spectrum; swinging, on and on, to and fro; though, there seem to be unknown planes interrupting our apparent smooth path.. And our pendulum swings according to unknown laws perhaps… or maybe none at all…