skonen_blades

Mi casa su casa
Me topia utopia
Which topia?
Dystopia.
A topiary of topias
Chia Pet societies
A society in the bush
Is better than two
In a billionaire’s hand
Nuking the site from orbit
Is the only way to be sure
To use two stones
To kill one bird
I think, therefore I am tired
Sometimes you miss one hundred percent
Of the shots you do take
Yesterday I tried to live in the now
Tomorrow I think I’ll be able to live there
Today I’m busy
We build the bridge as we cross the chasm
But we never get to the other side
Sisyphus disassociates
My anesthetic is topical
Blissfully unaware of ignorance
Rare but not special
Unique but not amazing
Always repeating but never the same
Mi casa sues for peace
My utopia is lower case
And welcome
Welcome




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I give a standing evasion to the grunting half-gutter; letting skillables dribble out through the teeming sifter of my mouth. A near-vana making my edifice complex clearly visible, a hades of hot nights but your cold shoulders are soft. You’ve won this game of chance with support hose, a rubber neck and pure gumption. If it weren’t for the saddles you’re using for shoulder pads, I’d think you were a golden horseshoe-laying silly goose.

You can appreciate the shattering cymbal of his mind and the bleeding air mail that circles every thought arrowing and minnowing around his head. It is the airspace of genius but it has no radar. Ideas full of passengers go down in flames or crash into each other regularly. If it wasn’t for tuna sandwiches and those arms of yours, he’d become a child made of missing posters.

Some jaws are hinges for waterslides. Some tongues are the kind that wrap kindling up so winter cold that it will never burn. Some lips are only built to tempt, mock, sneer, and pout in a parade of boxer’s promises.

But his set of teeth cuts the sentences into bullets. Those hollow cheeks frame a wind tunnel for aerodynamic language. Throats are bloodied in battle but only the strongly-worded survive. An armour stolen from the same dictionaries that haunted the questing author-minds of Shakespeare, Fat Tony, Rocky Shores, Cheese Louise, and Barney Rubble.

There are baton handoffs that make sense and then there are the bullets that find eight-year-olds in springtime, splattering ice cream that hasn’t even had time to start melting. The yoink of cancer, the screech of car tire interruptus, and the unwanted surprise of the scythe. Your relationship will hunker down beneath the blankets and take the punishment the outside world throws. You’ll laugh right up until it hurts. But know this:

Be kind to the crows and the flies and the worms.

They’ll return the favour.




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Nervousness cascades through me, little trickling slivers of ice through my body.

My focus can’t be held for very long. It’s a lot like fear but on the thrilling side rather than the terrified side. I feel like I’m in the roller coaster and I’m being pulled to the top of the first rise. I will most likely escape the coming hour unscathed but the fact that I have made the choice is making the animal in me want to chew at my ankle joint to escape the trap.

I breathe deep, once, to quell this feeling.

I’ve committed.

Every button that I fasten on my uniform is another pebble in the well of my growing resolve. My back is getting straighter. All expression is leaving my face. I feel like I am running down a mental checklist of my personality and turning off all of the switches that make me social and connected to humanity.

I am becoming practice. I am becoming a collection of well-rehearsed moves in a state of mental here/not here. I am the no-mind of imperative, directions, and training.

There’s a note in my head. It’s a taut string vibrating in a high whine. It won’t go away until this is over. I focus on it and let myself unite with it. I visualize my mind as a frequency buried in this meat construct and erase all other feelings of doubt or fear.

I let my heart rate and adrenalin levels become input and nothing more.

I can hear the crowd outside, muted through the metal, rising in a single sound. It’s a powerful emotion that floods through me when I hear that sound. It provides the lacquer and the polish to the rest of my inner preparations. I am theirs.

I belong to the crowd now. To fail or succeed is immaterial. I need only be flawless execution. The rest of it is up to the powers above me.

The door opens. Sound and light hits me with the force of a blast wave. It sounds like a riot in progress.

I pull down my face shield and step forward, out into the light.


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