Shame. After weeks of
pissing on old socks, food, cigarette butts, beer and paper trash—I take the
trashcan out. Movement stirs it. Inflames it.
The smell metastasizes, inflicting boils on the air—indescribable…a
tanginess to it, a zest as of ginger, foul, fetid, rancid ginger stuffed inside
a deadskunk stuffed inside a sculpture of Ted Bundy made out of POW-shit and
capital-raped bones. Everyone gathers,
stares, won’t let it go, if a smell could be let go, incredulous…I’m incredulous
too. Worse, worse, far worse than I
thought, and I can’t explain my own laziness, how I ignored it, how I lived
with it, its genesis…it’s awful, grows worse.
Who am I? Can I ignore
anything? This, this thing—this smell—an
olfactory genocide, and I let it happen, knew in ways that it was happening,
worse than I thought, right, literally, under my nose. Shame.
I can’t explain it. This failure…I
speak, speak weak, feeling how little it says, how awful, unspeakable I look,
stammering, eloquently weak—weak by virtue of eloquence—form without any
content, without conviction—as if it was only natural. & she there…”Did you live in that?”—unspeakable,
I can feel her judgment, silencing me, the shame a hollowing beak, emptying me,
opening channels of loathing through with attentiveness now sluices…is this
awareness? How how how did it happen—who do I confess to—I fell compelled to…if
not her?? Who has seen me ugly, naked,
selfish, condescending, brute, and absolutely broken, breaking, ejecting
death? It’s as if this time the
physicality of this sin—this trash which I had pissed on and let rot
thoughtlessly in the crupping ass of summer was too real, real by force of
thereness, a physical matter so strong, embiggened by the grotesque naturality
of the inevitable, of decay, could only choke, a sandstorm loosed upon the air
to dampen any fire of kindness, deference still glowing, guttering out for me…
And now I sit writing.
Feel my name spoken, my face grotesque, defamed, deformed…this is shame
then, to know your person is at this mercy of re-evaluation, that your esteemed
clay has been remolded, that they are firing your being in a kiln to make of it
a villainous idol, a portrait of carelessness, and I am afraid this idol might
capture me, might hold my place and mark my presence, leering, careless,
capable of vast acts of inconsiderateness, atrocity-rapes of the senses…and
yet, only a smell, only trash, for everything I am attentive to, this one I
neglected, this one neglect comes to define me—for how long?—work must be
done. Shame.
Shame.
A gear in capitalism, an engine of amends, of acts, of producing
redemption. General Buttnaked,
ceaselessly apologizing, wielding apology brutally, a shield covered in swords
and he who accepts the apology falls upon it, dying into a suicidal peace…but
dying, not the end here, forgiveness then a weakness, but weak for how long? Strong
in how forgiveness starts regeneration, but the shame, the shame of it…I can
still smell it. I want to retch. At first, I thought they were overreacting,
but I was underreacting, or at least—be generous with yourself—abreacting. Sure, yes.
Abnormal. Yes. Me abnormal.
Shame of myself, my body.
A mirror is another’s eyes. At
what point does a lover’s eyes stop being a horrific excoriating mirror? A mirror—false eyes. I was wrong.
Human eyes blinded by time, familiarity—not blinded, blinded to present,
somewhat, but see more, see you over time, how you have moved, been at peace,
at exhaustion, at the virile bit height of ecstasy almost completely expended—you
have been so many things, unabashed when you should have been, unabashed when
you should not have been—or do I condescend to my own self by giving in to the
terror and tyranny of another’s demand for my restraint—equality—is it this
that makes my bile rise?—the tyranny of it—the injustice of being afraid, made
small by it, helpless by feeling in no way beyond, as if I were a lion forced
to hug a squirrel for the squirrel had claimed we were both equal as animals—that’s
wrong, a wrong thing to feel…I’m ashamed of my feelings…I even want myself in
restraints—is shame the shackle of poetic form?
40 minutes later. I
can’t get the smell out of my nose.
Attempting to talk myself out of feeling guilt—she neglects me,
everything, for her work—I neglect my mom, my space, I barely spend time
there. True enough, but smacks of cop out. Just how I neglect my body—I am fucking lazy—my
debt, my desires, my work too—I must get my life in order—What does that mean?
Trash. What’s the trash?
This, me? Am I trash for ignoring
trash?—Maybe so…after all, those they call ‘white trash’ are mostly called that
for letting cars, bottles pile in their yards, letting their lawns grow the
symptomatic tumors which make visibly obscure the cancer of our economy—economies?—this
whole language is trash, obsolescent, junked behind the futurism inherent in my
present. Shame. Shame so physical it’s
metaphysical.
2 pairs of pants, 3rd on its way, split in the
last oblivious week. Fatter. Admit it.
Neglect. Shame. Untended. Inattentive—these are you—this neglect of the
body they call ‘fat’ shows your inattentiveness, your disregard for others,
your sociopathy to inflict your appearance, your trashcan with fermented piss
in it, upon the world—pots o’ piss, pissy tits, pissy dicks, look goddamnit at
yourself—but you can’t, the terror of it, of having to pluck out another’s eyes
& wear them like a shrunk turtleneck of balmy air, virtual goggles, &
see yourself—there, rolling, me but not me, my doppelganger, me emptied of
content, ashamed, mirrored, tongueless but for the offense of being shown
empty, as others see me—a writhing pornography of physicality like dissolving
electric eels pixelating their own self-powered screens, coalescing brief,
flickering out like neurasthenic tongues…
I flicker…the information of shame?—what’s it’s beautiful
evidence, the data-ink ratio of my blush, my stammer—“we find the body
difficult to speak,/ the head too hard to hear through,/ we find that eyes in
kissing stammer.”—flicker. Stammer.
Shutter. Gutter. Hiccough.
Hiccough. Binary hiccouch
stuttering the camera of the flickering tongue guttering its flame behind the
shutters, the window-lips…
I hate the telephone.
Landlines…they would be better. A
lil sip of whiskey, a cigarette—how many reps equals a good feeling?—for me—2
long—good equals namely fingering my engagement ring 2 the waiting room of
monogamous hope—
Habit, a dog chained to its own vomit. Did I remember that right? A waiting room, flickering, of stuttering
dogs, shackled by shame to vomit they’ve smelt so long as to be numb…
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