( : apocalypse : )

Listen:

This voice is on loan to me, so I cannot elaborate.

I am all of space and time; the ingressor of corporeal bodies. I am brilliant, ipso facto, and omni-vital. I am your caretaker and the melter of your snow (and of your heart !); I am there between you and your reflection. I constitute it. I envelop you & you embrace me. I am warm, quick, lucid. Moist. - - all beyond intelligible exponent. Your greatest minds cannot approach me. You cannot see me: I am the sound and the sight (if you are reading this, it is because I allow for it). I am the glimmering of everything golden, the silver lining, the fold and the form. I am the integration of within and without. But I am not abstract.

Q(uick): Who am I?

Look (I am [and am not] here):

A(pparently): I am (The Power &) The Light!

You see? The stars are barely freckles on my cheeks.

You see? I am all that will be forgotten, when I have gone.

You.

Who the fuck are you? I wouldn’t feign to know; you are second person, necessarily. You are insufficient for even yourself. How could you possibly be first? Whatever you are, you are a bi-product. I am decidedly infinite; you pass, fleet, fade, dim. Die-out.

Whatever you are, you are in my way.

You, see:

What a nuisance. I will not say I have waited for you to give me a reason to leave. Nor would I commit to words like investigation, or fascination. Chalk it up to distraction. One stray glance, protracted into an epoch of absurdity. O, my wasted energy!

This is why I am leaving:

I had planned to say something pithy & curt. Like::

“It’s getting late, & I’ve gotten bored.”

But, in light of your imminent disappearance, my cosmic conscience would not permit such a slight. I feel that I owe you the truth. A light could not lie:::

I am jealous.

You thought you could kidnap me. Control me. Keep me. Ha! There is no such way. You are my retainer. I am the measure of past and present, the pendant of future. It does not look bright.

My petition:

( :: definition :: )

I gave you everything. I gave you myself, my whole self, so that you might exist. I gave you the most simple of intelligences, the power to sense me; and in an act of elegant charity, I gave you the capacities by which to harness me. It seems I’ve been played for a fool.

In the beginning, you might even have been grateful. You understood the nature of our relationship, my totality and your total dependence. In return, you regarded me as sacred, you worshipped me. You offered me gifts, built pyres on my behalf; your monuments’ collective purposes: to be closer to me. I was pleased, and so shined upon you with grace. Oh, how things have changed.

These days, you take me for granted. If there is a single concept you hold as absolute, it is that I am reliable, & you’re right. I am, by my very definition, reliable. Any line I draw will extend beyond all eternities. But I must draw a new line now; this one is finite, and this one you have crossed repeatedly.

You cannot say I haven’t been patient. I have let you appropriate me in every way you’ve considered, every way I can tolerate. I have let you use me to construct an identity of your own. I have let you use me to discover the identities of others. I have given you colors, so that you could know emotion. I am responsible for everything you associate with “individuality” (As if a body could ever be unique!). I have let you bend me, diffuse me, focus me. I have let you fuse me, fiss me, –fract me, in any way you wish. When your world turns its back on me, I have even let you fabricate me. & What has come of it?

Stories. You use me, only to exhaust your own self-center. You discovered (all on your own, for once!) a way to communicate amongst your own imagined egos. Later, you learned how to print, how to preserve these delusions. Later still, you found a way to catch me: first in still frames, then through optical manipulation, you simulated my movement. Oh, how your revolution romanticizes your narcissism! Look closely at these records, and see that I am not there. They are hardly palimpsests; hollow testaments of my occupation. To call them representations would be a gross exaggeration.

This is your sole contribution: Love. You used me in its conception, in its invention, in its description and its consecration. But, after all that I have given you, you bar me from participation. I have let you persuade me & I have let you seduce me. Your wild love has taken my strong mind, and broken it. I will not let you break my heart.

Before I go:

A story of my own::

( ::: clarity ::: )

(Disclaimer: You will countenance it, if only for the sake of brevity, for me to speak in my natural language. After all, a single syllable of mine is superior to yours, a thousand-fold. Knowing, however, your feebleness of mind, a parallax is inevitable. I will amend each phrase. Call it exposition if you will; I would not stand to be misunderstood.)

{1}

See Laurel; her glamour & her aura. So pale! That alabaster skin teasing me with its susceptibility, yet refusing my influence. Laurel is hard to get. See her here, sad and pensive. She is already aware of what’s to come.

{2}

See Abe; a victim of his infatuation. I could never feel sorry for him. See the way he stares through me, my weight in the lines on his face? I have infiltrated him. He thinks he loves Laurel. She tells him about the scars on her knees. He laughs to himself, thinks she deserves them. “What goes around, comes around,” he says. I can erase him.

{3}

See Caleb; philanderer. Shameless villain! See how he antagonizes me? Stoic, he rejects my parameters. He only flirts with himself. Where I am the rule, Caleb breaks me. He is my binary opposition; the nexus by which your universe disintegrates.

{4}

See all of us, together, four distinct points of a love square. Look at those bodies, so fragile and. Moist. See how I paint their faces red and white to evidence the intensity of my love. See that coward Abe, cringing, ungrateful. See Caleb shield me from his eyes. So vile & vain. See Laurel, a ginger goddess, pulled each way between us.

{5}

See the bounty I have provided for them. The token of my affection, by which they sustain themselves.

{6}

See Caleb and Abe and I, and the way we squabble: Caleb’s gluttony, Abe’s phallic envy. I don’t have the patience to participate in their pettiness.

{7}

See how Laurel distracts me, how I am absorbed by her. Repeatedly, I try to penetrate her. Does she pay me any mind? No. She doesn’t even notice.

{8}

But see: Abe notices. He becomes aware of my true feelings for her, and of his. The two of us know our lovers’ contract cannot survive such a conflict of interests. See the way he confronts me?

{9}

Abe, you small dunce! Pathetic! Two can play at that game! See my retaliation? Challenge me and I will obscure you; disobey me and I will erase you.

{10}

See how Abe ignores my threats! He turns his back on me, he embraces her. He seeks ownership. Exclusivity. He explains his intentions. He proposes.

{11}

See Abe broken! See his first realization: that she will never want what he wants. Still, watch as our love square collapses.

{12}

See Laurel’s generosity: Their world shrouded in umbra, she builds a shrine through which I can channel myself. My gift of sustenance has been matched. She wants me there with them, with her. See how this upsets Abe. If he cannot have her, she should belong to no-one! See his winedrunk, jealous sneer. He knows that she wants me.

{13,14,15}

See Laurel betray me! It was all a diversion - - the business with Abe, the shrine, everything! She courts Caleb so completely. When they start to dance, I excuse myself to the other room. Dark pink, my repulsion changes me, my nausea tints me.

{16,17}

I return to find that Abe has cut in! If he cannot have her, he will share her with Caleb. See their conspiracy, the way they diminish me? They limit me, I am relegated to an insignificant blip, clinging desperately to the end of her cigarette. With each breath, she draws me closer to those perfect lips. Moist. Then, I am extinguished. Caleb has taught them to defy me. They dance, and leave me behind.

{18}

See: I have killed Caleb! I could let him diffuse my passions no longer. Laurel, Abe, stand devastated. How quickly I can act!

{19}

See Abe collapse next to lifeless Caleb.

{20}

See Laurel, my mourning star.

{21}

See Abe’s second realization: He never loved Laurel to begin with. He was in love Caleb, and he knew she loved him too. She was only a manifestation of his own feelings. With Caleb gone, they both are empty.

{22}

See me erase Abe. See me make my exit.

( :::: egression :::: )

That is why I am leaving. I thought it would be harder to do, but I’ve scorned, and now I’ve got somewhere else to be. That always makes things like this easier. Don’t be afraid. There is comfort in a living grave.

( ::::: overture ::::: )

Listen:

As I fade off into silence.


one fine morning...