Page 93 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2
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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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