vital signs
now, i have no reason to suppose that i am any sadder than other people
(now, i have no reason to suppose that i am any more or less human)
but i confess i should like to see a self who does not tremble into crumbles at the mere sight of someone dear to them.
who is not woefully overwhelmed by the idea of proximity to an ontological fascination.
who does not need to offer forcibly his throat as sacrament for privilege.
perhaps most folks do not conceive of the only possible way to verify themselves as keeling over in a parking lot, limp with lack of assertion.
how do i fall? with a limber, or with a thump?
(maybe my corpse is driven over, in the dark. maybe i'm one-dimensional and just as not-even-there as i feel, sometimes.)
because, if they picked me up, and admonished, come on, honey, are you eating? the answer is yes, calories and protein and lots of veg and copious quantities of water. i eat. to make presentable, i eat. to seem normative, i eat. to pretend humanity, i eat.
pick me up and put me to rights. dust me off and leave me again.
i'm healthy. just as i should be. it's not so piteous, to be twenty-three.
but am i a baby? am i pitiful and weak, holding out my arms for a hug - the one i'm allotted, just once every few weeks, and particularly only when we've mutually been away?
(i eat. i'm hungry. i need to eat.)
you can't have it. you can't do it. it's not for you.
(not to stroke my hair, but to tap my head. to not ever once dream of leaving without me. to essentialize what i bring. but i'm nothing special. i'm nothing-)
but who is this for? who can do this?
who can put up with the perpetual onslaught, week upon week and day upon day, of a world so lonely? a world so vapid and profate with isolation?
here i am among a family, the conglomerate of people i love most-most of all, who doesn't know me very well. really, who is but isn't mine.
i really don't see it as very sympathetic, this thing of islanding off from the biological origination. i really doesn't see it as so heroic, what i did.
but i see this as an objection, an objective, an obstacle. i see this as stupidity, virality charged, that i am so starving for stillness.
and is my lens not the issue? need i not simply refocus?
to see the person as people, and not a letter addressed to your heart.
to let the world alone to function. not everything is about you.
not everything is about you- but I am hungry, but I am weak, but I am an organism which wishes to sustain itself and I want to be loved i want to be loved i want to be loved
i want to be valued
i want to be missed
i want to be told i mean something
i want to be meant
i want to mean it
i want i want i want
i need i need i need
no matter my blood pumping, my throat bobbing, my legs moving
there's a component i lack, and if i must fall faint to get it-
then i suppose i must.
then i suppose i must find a way to it.
then i suppose i am failing fine.
i must i must i must
i will i will i will
are you eating?
imagine. am i eating
how voracious, i
how untenable, i
how unethical, i
how many times must i act out?
how many times, strapped to routine's bed?
how many times, dying and waking and dying again?
give me the drip, you would
but i'm allergic to it
see my throat closing now
i must have it. i'd kill myself to get it.
i must have it, though it hurts me so.