PHANTOM LIMBO

what to say, really, when you're thinking about what to say

as someone enters, forcing the question:

«what to say»

i say i am happy, but don't know that i am happy

i say i understand, but don't know if i understand

i say i am puzzled, and i know i am puzzled, because no one who is not puzzled would be able to write:

«i say i am puzzled»

there must be a dungeon in my body, or a dungeon in what i claim to be my body

i know little of my heart

I know little of the mythology to which it belongs, physical or metaphysical

from the hands of a ten year old with a crayon it looks a certain way

from the hands of a coroner, carefully placing it in a plastic container filled with ice, it looks a certain way

i have learned to accept both

my heart has two dimensions

my brain invariably looks the same

never sketched or aesthetically mutilated on the walls of a red bike shed, where some unclassifiable characters are ceaselessly drawing blood, kissing, or finding individual ways of accepting the torment of not being able to not be able to smoke cigarettes, correctly

«now i smoke cigarettes correctly»

can i say that

you make me think of a time when i knew i was beautiful, like flowers are beautiful, and also handsome, but not like flowers are handsome

i want to write you something beautiful, but i barely know you

how can you write something beautiful to someone you barely know

should i base it on how i feel

i write

«i feel heavenly»

does that make you feel beautiful

the way i want you to feel beautiful

does my effort in making you feel beautiful, make me beautiful, like handsome men are beautiful, before they turn into flowers by their own design, corporeal confusion wrapped in delicate paper

would you say

«you are beautiful»

the same way i would say

«you are beautiful»

and, it being said, will we turn beautiful, as in

«we are beautiful»

the pair of us, wondering what to say next, thinking we must already have said it

all

not being able, or willing, to bring it outside this immanent vortex of brilliantly timeless unification

we proceed to write on ourselves, with rainbow-colored fingertips, writing multitudes of stories, newly ancient scrolls that go splendidly unnoticed

only later observed as typhoonic shots of joy on an amazingly changing sky

within each freckle, tales of dynasties

south of a scar, the intimacy of a hundred years of togetherness

then drawing

carefully crafted lines with paleolithic efficency, cumbersome, yet classy curves, filling every single unoccupied stretch of skin with spellbinding marvels, proudly showcasing the improbability of a lover and a lover, and their love, looking something like a tablet found on a holy mountain

over and over

and surprisingly

on the wall of an inhabited or uninhabited cave

us then

depicted as two buffalos asleep on a hot stone