His skin is crumbling away and he’s always hungry,
knows he’s slowly losing his mind, all alone far too often.
His new lover cares for him, plays with him, but she
is toxic, he, aware of her dangers, but, no
self-control. Not in his possession or even
consideration. ‘Say Yes,’ like Elliott Smith
told him to. ‘I defy you to realise it,’ like John Frusciante sang.
So he says ‘yes’ and realises, talking to these
friends of his in the dark, then himself, at first
in the mirror, then without a mirror, until
eventually he feels as though, more often
than not, he is no longer in his
body but outside of it, watching himself, as well as
all the other selves, an omniscient presence
connecting each to the other. He crosses boundaries
of multi-verse genetics also, connecting the ‘hims’
to their other friends, the ones whose words changed
everything, who sang to him in the dark, and now
he starts singing back, they all do, eyes closed, mostly.
He nods his head to a beat, and all the ‘hims’
nod also, some seated at desks in the dark, candle lit, others
happily fearful in forests, grinning on mountains or drowning
in the oceans. Some are doing yoga, or smoking and drinking,
some sleeping, screaming, eating sandwiches,
and a couple of them think about
mistakes and decisions, but only a couple.
This pleases the omniscient floating entity
because in most realities he’s Ok. He ignores the few
in which ‘he’ thinks too much, screams ‘fuck backwards’
and ‘attack, attack you mother fucker’
knowing he can return to his body and continue
to live, with the knowledge he was right and will
never be lonely again. He doesn’t need skin or food.
Empty is good. Unguarded is good. He is mouldable
and ready to be filled, screams ‘yes’ and screams ‘yes’ again
and grins and they all grin and he begins to run
to the sound of a stampede in his heart and while running
and losing his mind he thinks, ‘Made it.’
