Page 93 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2
P. 93
will never find what you seek and one day, Photograph. Finish an image. Something. I
this will kill you. Go ahead, rebel all you want. can't lie here.
Create as much as you need to. Seek intimacy.
In the end, nothing will change. You will still Thoth looks at me, then utters another sound
die. V'lo yasah eloheem nepesh." stream that tells me he wants me to remain in
bed. "No," I answer. Not to be deterred from
The heart is a restless wanderer. what he wants, he crawls under the blankets
The gray emptiness of winter haunts me. and disappears.
With every passing day it becomes ever more I can't handle making fresh coffee right now,
difficult for me to hold myself in place. So so I empty the remains of yesterday's ca-
restless am I that the mere touch of clothing rafe into my cup and place it in the micro-
against my skin pains me as though a thou- wave. I watch the timer count down. I have
sand needles were driven into wounded flesh. to look away. I can't—I won't—be reminded
I fear no good will come of this wandering, that my life is emptying out like water upon
but it is who I am—it is written in my flesh, the ground, never again to be gathered up. I
as deeply, as coarsely, as intensely as my own know I am dying. I am aware of it every mo-
death. Although some days, it is all I can do to ment of every day. "Too easy would it be, to
keep moving. die today," I say in silent words only I can
hear, from the darkness that veils my heart.
I can taste the coming of April. Her promise "Death, I spit in your eye. Loneliness, I would
of the imminent spring remains sterile and take your heart from you and impale it upon
empty beneath the pallor of winter’s lifeless my longing. Vanity, I have no patience for
hands. you. I shall love and I shall be loved..."
Indignantly, Thoth pulls himself from be- This is the dead land
neath the covers. I am moving too much. His This is cactus land
place—head resting on my left shoulder—has Here the stone images
been disturbed one too many times. Indigna- Are raised, here they receive
tion turns to fury, and he rises to glare down The supplication of a dead man’s hand
at me. He tells me that he has had enough of Under the twinkle of a fading star.
my restlessness—or so I infer from the stream
of sounds he releases and the look in his eyes. Is it like this
Thoth is a Himalayan. His cat eyes grow large In death’s other kingdom
and round when he is upset with me, the cold Waking alone
steeliness of his anger murdering the warm At the hour when we are
blueness that usually dominates his gaze. Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
"Fuck off," I say, rolling over onto my side. A Form prayers to broken stone. 2
mere few seconds later, I have to move again.
Long are the shadows in the room. Dawn is My heart is a restless wanderer. ■
coming. "One less day to live," I tell myself.
"I’m going to need coffee."
2
I am exhausted, but I can't sleep in. I have to TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men," Part III, stanzas 1 and 2.
get out. I have to do something. Write. Walk.
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