True, that my spirit is broken in fourteen places; true, that my macros are excellent; true, that I like blood sport; true, that I have fallen in love. Fast-walking my Tokyo neighborhood, arms out like an exiled penguin, I ascend a puke-green bridge to admire the cars, their red lights at ash-strewn dusk like divine intervention, or at least divine warning. Chasing a high that is tragedy on tragedy on tragedy on tragedy on tragedy.
In my house, there are many rooms.
Don’t let your guard down. Don’t get your guard down. Above all else, don’t let your guard down. Feet and hands arrive together, in a lockstep that is almost intimate. Distance into overzealous touch and then back into distance. Fists like keys. Right leg, a pillar; left leg, sweeping for mines. Hand extended, pitifully. Come over here and let me hold you. Oh, but don’t let your guard down. Briefly blinded by flesh and rags. Lose your time, your eyes, your every single gilded treasure, but don’t let your guard down. A lanky, long-tongued dog appears in the corner of the room, scratching up the tatami, and oh my fucking God, I’ve just been hit in the face. The four brocaded walls of my cranium, rattling cylindrically. I said, don’t let your guard down! But struck once, a sequel is inevitable, and I receive this second blow dutifully, like a child at communion. Better than expected, worse than hoped. The shelter where I was hiding last night, under the moon in the black copse, collapses in one terrific go. You retrieve the bricks to then build the house I will die in.
In my house, there are many rooms.
I don’t have the moral courage to end this. Hamartia will groan from underneath me, sweaty on the bedsheets, and rise to devour me whole. Saturn and his son, you and my pearl. I take you with me always. Staring at the shy light bleeding out from under the edge of a dark rain cloud. Blue of a contusion, gold in scattered ribbons. Light stretching out, like a cat or goddess, onto the bedspread. I am filled with frightening joy, and not because this reminds me of anything or because it is symbolic of something or because I can craft a metaphor or story from its raw material. I am filled with joy at the observation, the sensation. Action of the sky, equal and opposite reaction of the heart. Translucent, eternal becomes, in me, dense, momentary. So much tender and idle beauty. Don’t push your punches. Don’t let your guard down.
Speaking of which—
In my house, there are no rooms. I’ll wait for you tonight instead at the park, perched on the rusty rungs leading up to the red plastic slide. You say jump, I say how high. Come and meet me and let us fight and draw only a little blood.
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