A verse inscribed in fire and light.
Go Back To Sleep
Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within. ~Harlan Ellison
I have a mouth and I can scream
But I probably shouldn’t. What good would it do?
If I were to cry out, would the earth take me to
her bosom and keep me safe?
Or would Hal 9000 detect my
emotional spike , understand it and move on to
process more real, material data? (I.E the sound that a fly makes when it
expels methane gas, the exact circumference of a common stag beetles’
shell, the smell of an ant that has been left tied up and dried out in a
brown recluses’ web for three days and three nights)
Would you believe there is a kind of hyperventilation that goes unnoticed
by the lungs, and doesn’t escape through the orifices
as it expands and retracts in the brain
If I told you I could smell sulfur, you
would tell me it was just my bad nose
If I tasted blood you would say it
was all the salt I’d poured on my eggs
If I told you I sensed someone
crouching behind the door after midnight, you
would tell me it was just the wind
If I felt death looming just over the horizon . . .
If I told you this was all wrong, you’d
tell me that the world is all wrong,
and you’d smile
These things happen you’d say
Go back to sleep
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