I am sitting here, according to the calendar, almost through the first quarter of 2022. I sat on other muscles last year, for variety. No one noticed I have been sitting on my own face since 1975 anyways. I tell the dead nothing, but not because I am apathetic. I just sit on my own face to avoid small talk. I figure my life is one single word I utter with life leaving my body. I fool myself that I even exist. I have had a few citations and some groups reach out to me for collaborative efforts that I cannot afford. Seemingly solid, elements I could use to describe my life become vague and perversely intransigent.
I was chasing some job leads that evaporated. At least the recruiter assures me so. I think about the ashes of the dead finding their way into concrete, how these cities sing with the carbon that once held our bones. Little fishes swimming up dark and inviting riverbeds towards those places that resonate with porpoise. If all I think about is my family, how crowded it must seem for me to care about people I have never met, nor will ever meet. It might seem awkward to me, a hikikomori, ‘hikikabilly’ if you prefer, to drum up support for x people because of what y people are doing to them, but to people in need, in Ukraine AND in Russia dealing with this madness, aid is needed. This tragedy is much more important than any of my acrobatic rants.
I would still aid people who were in dire straits even if they found me odd and repulsive, but I cannot find a job above the poverty level. I am tumbling, tumbling through a place. It is dark in here. I feel like a circus peanut.
These words beat a tattoo that momentarily stirs dust in a deeper crypt beyond time. I cannot think of anything that adds to any discussion about immoral war. It never enters the water cooler talk. No one talks to me about anything beyond the politics of the [insert pathetically insignificant organized group of people]. We need to end misery on this planet in order to come together.
Fifty State Banana 