By Jon Kunitsky
Persephone door, tighter than usual, in the shadow of The Arena, at the gate, and the waiting bellies, hearts in throats, peddling their worries of rejection in exchange for hope, to traverse the fantasy, pressed between the metal, itching to get to the bottom of it, deeper and deeper, as someone behind you tells you how the place is teeming with spirits, eidola, and you hope they don’t mean you.
In the end it’s always the way you lose your Rick Owens wallet in the back of the Uber there, the way they’d take your baggies and vials at the security check, the fuckers, how are we supposed to have a good time how are we supposed to live at all without the possibility of not living anymore, fuckers, all the formaldehyde pheromone gremlins stomping on the fire.
But we get through, of course we do, and P is with me and so is Star and Lore and X variables trailing, of course, and all the others who call this wartime bunker home except the ones I couldn’t imagine getting in, of course they get sent home send them all away only kindly.
Tunneling through, into the whirring and the thunder, spotting in the fog the faceless, club goblins, gargoyles nested on their mounts in funerary vestments counting and cutting their wares, and what is that crawling on its belly from the catacombs, panty trist mingled with the dredges of the mystery night and the nights remaining ket-dusted-dollar loose, what is that so sorely swaying and convulsing the worship and flinging deliverance to the she-wolf, the lion, and the leopard…
Outside in the babygirl graveyard, outside where we rest from the heart and the song—godless music, there is no such thing—I can’t hold it anymore, so I am here so I believe in The Church of Fun and drop another whatever in the bucket of time to find what it is the angel said to me at the foot of my bed at eleven what Gabriel spoke to Mary what John whispered to her in his arms at the foot of the cross what Saini, Calvary, Bethlehem, Bushwick, Bed Stuy mean, what swirling devils flushed to the front of the dance floor whizzing through their candy, seeing what it can do for the good of the business of decoding the sequence, for what, with who—
And it’s all there, the second in the hour’s minute being the beat of a heart longing to rest, but not now not now for the Word of Command has given us the heat a chance for rapture, presides over us, watches us gaggle and extol, amen, amen, amen. Let’s find the others in the yard, the night remains inviting even as it sets, even as I can’t seem to hold it together anymore and run to the piss locker, and bolt myself down and lose the thread. A sudden lapse in life-TV causes space-time to fold and crease, and the picture goes all fuzz, then unfolds a million times until it collapses and reshapes in the form of us, steady as jell-o mold in an earthquake, and back again at HeadQuarters, head right on the bass, as my feet go numb.
Up again, get up, and get the fuck up its time, to a new frontier, cleaner, less alive to play the part of fear, more awake to the kiss of life, oh i love you, excuse me, i love you the universe loves you we love you, repeat repeat. At the back I rediscover what everyone’s been on about, about the elemental and the primitive, the primordial in the thud and cracking, the builds and drops, you said you said you’d never forget this year, a year of light for you, Oedipus in reverse, finally setting aside the sword, letting the hot blood dry, putting the quest to bed and remaining true to it still.
We share a line of joy together, all in a day’s work, all in a day’s work. Let’s find the others in the stalls as the night hounds us and still we find free, enough to smile between the medicine and the medicine’s reverse, talking about your mother, how she chews too loud, cleans too much, hugs so little so little but, wait can I have a little more, yes, she said she cries too little, she said she’s finally happy now that she’s sixty, isn’t that funny, how the angry years wash away maybe that’s how it is, maybe that’s just how long it takes.
Tunneling through, out & about & over, into the garden of death, on the rocks on the walls on the benches in the red hue, tuning out the story of your 8th ego death, better than the 5th but not nearly as nice as the 3rd, and the battle with the heather and your demiurge, evil and good, holding on to the belief that the epic is in you not for you, but that it is not even epic, it is inside then outside, up and down, then tumbling back to the little us.
We’re back it seems and it seems so recent to have wanted anything so superficial, and this hand in your hand, your hand on a knife sharp waist, and some shoulder to head, how this feels more real than any real, tastes louder, prays harder, loves lighter, holds fairer than any rebirth you could ever ever become.
Jon Kunitsky is a writer based in New York. He has previously been published in Barrelhouse Magazine and TABLE.
|IG|
losing our grip on purpose 