The Persistence of Memory
His love, outside of time, beyond the illusion of forever, was immemorial as it was eternal.
Long before the human genome had been discovered and deciphered in cold, impersonal laboratories, his epigenetics had been warmly at work, laying down inheritable sentiments for his progeny. He built up a latticework of devotion to her where natural selection had no relevance.
His love would persist through the ages. It always had, hadn't it? Some certainties persist beyond memory.
His was just a trick with amino acids, bonding junk DNA to the otherwise silent portions of his genetic helices. But there she straddled, fresh and alive; lovely and kind; and generously giving.
And inheritable.
Alas, he never taught her how to do likewise. He couldn't. It was a process so private and inherently esoteric that he didn't quite understand it himself. How could he translate such mindful machinations into words of instruction? He might just as easily deconstruct love, grief, or loneliness, all of which ensued upon her death.
But love and grief and loneliness are constructs of a genetically derived mindfulness, apart from his epigenetic love letter, and ne'er the twain would meet: his completeness by her was immune to the instructions of mere proteins or hormones.
Each time he visited her grave, the tighter his epigenetic bonds became. They stood out--little bombs easily packaged for sorties to his offspring to come.
Each time he visited her grave, he would sink to his knees, crying, "I love you eternally. My love is still here now, and will so remain, until it becomes the stuff of stars themselves!"
Hundreds of years later, great-great-great-grandchildren, now unrecognizable to each other on their family tree, visit her grave driven via a powerful, mysterious compulsion. Chance had summated perfectly: three strangers--two men and a boy--know they must be there but don't know why.
Prudence Planchard
My Forever Love
May 25, 1757 — September 5, 1785
The older man said, "I love you forever."
The younger man, added, "My love is still here now..."
And the boy added, in a sentiment well beyond his years, "...and will so remain until becoming the stuff of stars themselves."
They departed, but would certainly, in love, cross paths again.
loss of a fungus
Is the black Soul leaving the skull a sign of death
Is it rebirth or is it what Fate Wished to beheld
the Bug the creature
the Mask of Life
a Nail right through the chest
Penetrate the chitin, see through their Dreams
the Russula cradles the Honey
two Fungi and Bugs Die in each others arms
Why me, Why you all along
when the parasite only Wished to help
why does the Knight take the life
of the savior of the Land
the Trees Weep but the Hollow Husks know not of the tragedy
the Moss cradles the the Shell
the Broken Mask along a Green Path
and Orange eyes watch from the Wasps
as the last of the soul leaks from the hole
and enters the Abyss
boomtings
she married herself
dressed up in white
stunning she looked
mirror reflected a thunderstorm
she had a ring on each palm
and then she adorned one on each hand
she read her vows
she kissed herself on the mirror
she undressed and made love to herself
she had a perfect life
she wanted tragedy
she wanted to be receiving a soldiers uniform when adorned in white or
walking over a sea of red
here nothing was tragic
every other day amidst thunder reflecting on that mirror
she prayed for tragedy
it didnt arrive
nor did she marry him
but she married her self
she is her own widow
she is her own wife
i am not her husband
I redact my forgiveness
*I swear I meant to follow the prompt. Alas, I wrote this...content warning-ish, I guess*
You told me I was ugly.
Worthless. Brainless. Pitiless.
You told me I would never amount to anything more
than the sad shadow of a dream you'd predestined for me.
You told me I was small,
and then when I outgrew you,
you cut my legs from beneath me.
You told me I was talent-less,
unworthy of investment.
You told me not to reach, not to strive, not to build myself up.
You even taught me that it wasn't worth the effort.
Why become at all when the world only seeks to destroy?
I listened.
That scrawny, pathetic, witless child listened.
I drank down your bitterness and convinced myself it was sweet honey.
I forgave every transgression.
I offered myself up onto your altar,
allowed you to mold me into your dream.
I didn't fight back.
I didn't ask for more than the pittance you gave.
I stagnated.
And I reveled in every shred of praise.
I stopped caring about my conscience.
I ignored the inner voice that screamed
to be more than a slave.
Yes, the child I was
forgave.
And then,
I was suddenly awake
and full of hate.
I hate what you made me.
I hate that I let you convince me to be nothing.
My conscience is screaming now, motherfucker--
and it's telling me that you committed a travesty.
You heinous, insidious, shriveled little prick-
you stole that girl's soul.
You saw her.
You saw that she would've rattled the very core of the universe if given half a chance.
And you were terrified.
So you crushed her- crushed me- like the ember at the end of a cigarette butt.
I became ash beneath your feet.
I am no longer a child.
She may have forgiven you,
but I don't.
Most certainly not when I went and fulfilled your dreams for me.
When I pumped out children like some prized brood-mare
because it was the only thing I'd ever been taught to be.
I became that mother.
I became that wife.
I became that live-in maid you always wanted me to be.
But your plan backfired.
Because the moment I looked into my child's eyes,
I felt more powerful than you'd ever allowed me to be.
And I knew
I would burn the world for that little girl.
I would even burn you.
She will never doubt for a moment
her immense worth.
And as she grows, I feed that fire in her.
Intelligence that was quelled in me,
looms iridescent behind her cunning eyes.
She will rattle the very core of this universe.
And I will be there
beside her
a battle cry on my lips,
as she conquers every dream she ever dared to dream.
And you will still be dead
Ash beneath our feet.
The Day I Decided To Live
The day I decided to live,
Caught me in a steel boot panic,
The small of my back,
A wormy spasm
Of mortal Morse code
In hell’s exiled hospital bed.
I am going to live.
Apathy aches
Through crawl space bones,
Her humid bore
Fogging to a damp finish,
While once weathered sighs
Float through grey morgue skies,
Skirting deadweight tides
Of tedium’s laboured arrest,
Lapping and licking my bleached heel
So pathetically.
I am going to live.
The bald scream
Of atrophied helplessness
Staggers me on,
And catches the ears
And eyes of God,
And I refuse to drown
In this landfill avalanche,
Like a perfunctory punk.
I am going to live.
I jumpstart the last nucleus
Of infant flame
That had retired
To a soldered melt
Of sunny sizzle,
As black psalm laments
Crystallise into turncoat hallelujahs,
And mutiny’s inferno
Gives Bloody Mary
An everlasting
Atom bomb kiss.
I am going to live.
Junkyard demon dogs
Drip dross through fanged bluster,
And the devil’s tremulous waters
Are glaucoma eyed bonds
And last gasp glances,
Of stonewalled silence,
Scrambled mirages,
Distorted mirrors
And pilloried ego death.
I am going to live.
I devour the curse
And strike up the band,
As my stop watch pulse
Shivers through my powder keg hand,
And I will unearth the mile high soil
And limp bow legged
Through blood sun boil,
Because you cannot gaol
The uncaged heart
Of one who knows
That beyond death’s saltwater kiss
Waits the sacred miracle
Of reset revolution
And purpled salvation.
I am going to live.
searching
as the Infection never ceases to spread
neither shall the doctor of Death quit his Search
for a Cure or a Fix or an Eradication of all that keep it bred
it is all for the good of Life
if they live they can spread and they can die
it is not an obsession it is a Cure it is a help for the Bugs
without Him . who would even try
The honey fungus has such a nice name,
sweet like Honey but Sickly to the trees it infects
they All die
But it wants to Live, how else can it Get what it needs for existence
this Infection is not like a parasite to a tree
it is a parasite to the earth and to the life around it
without the Russula . who would save the poor bugs
from the fate that beheld them
No
there are No lives to save or to Fix
they are all gone and all dead
but the Search for a Cure cannot be stopped
because without him,
None could Live
it is not an Obsession it is a Fix that all the souls would beg for
the souls trapped behind Orange
an Infection
and obsession for a Fix
a Cure
an insatiable need to fix what CanNot be changed
what has existed for centuries
what one Bug what the doctor who now is one of Death cannot change
an Insatiable Search for Knowledge
for a fix not One unalive soul had asked
for insatiability blocks out Life
for the Search only hurts worse than the Infection ever had
They call her fickle
Listen,
the muse sings to the
pulling of weeds, to the
piling of bricks, to the
scrubbing of plates.
The muse sings to the
earthbound, to the occupied,
to souls in revolt against
menial days. Silent cries
beckon loudest, prayers and
invocations be damned:
the muse will not be summoned
and scorns intention. She
cares nothing for your plans,
laughs at your blank page,
pisses on your offerings.
She will not bless self-anointed
poets who ransack corpses
for metaphors.
So move forward. Live.
Be about your business, turn
the grindstone, then breathe.
Breathe. Listen.
The muse sings to those
hungriest for song.