nine-score pounds of flesh
worth nothing
(but for scars
and carnal pleasures)

(if only)
i could shed
this skin(weight){gravity}
that pulls my thoughts down
{keeps me feet-to-floor and
down-below-the-earth-crust}
and float across
this life(time)ocean
to reach the shores
we walked (hand-in-hand) on
many(fathom)years ago

(if only)
i could realize that
{skin is nothing
but a mask-
custom fitted to my}
flesh
is nothing but mass-
a (memory)weight bound
to (y)our laws
of (synaptic)physics-
nothing but (a
habit of giving in to)inertia unbridled
in a(n emotional) vacuum

{this will not stop
until i hit gravity}

nine-score pounds of flesh
to which i've taken
quite a liking-
and it scares you
(i know)
to see me put knife to meat
but it's this
(armor)skin
that keeps me
from feeling you
the way i should

(wait, wait,
until this stops
{until i hit
gravity}
and i grow
the wings
you've been waiting for)

04/23/2003

Author's Note: this has cass' silent approval. chris is at school. when she has the chance to read it, she will ask me what it is about, inevitably. I want her to understand, above all else. Love is not and has never been about affection. I can care for any lice covered primate. Love is understanding. Know this, know everything. if she ever doubts it is my desire, and my willingness, to make her understand that should erase her doubt. i met someone the other day who knew me before. How strange this is for me. she knew me when only family and lovers called me anything but malachi. when he was unbridled and allowed to be honest at all times. Strange days. I say i am not a single entity. I am legion. Some understand. Some nod their heads in mindless approval. others shrug in ignorance. accuse of melodrama. How quaint. I am making an effort, no small one, to give each one its voice. it is not easy. Bleed me. in this one, nine-score, malachi is red, and i, richard, am silver. Together we are the lifeblood of the main text of the poem, the black text which would be what was read at a "live" reading, the in-between. That's how i've learned to live now. in-between. Most of the time it doesn't hurt. That scares me the most. if it doesn't hurt, it isn't real. Ask any animal, they will tell you. believe otherwise, and you are a fool. angels suffer. Wings do not represent freedom, they represent the greater burden of carrying one's own weight and that of the world they know. i am messenger. that is why no capital "i." "i" am not important, is not important, as arrogant and desiring of your attention as "I" am. It is the message that is important, and i must work hard at swallowing it so that i can digest it for you properly. I eat coal and shit the diamonds you adorn your wives with. and i have learned something about honesty, y(our) favorite virtue. It is impossible to live up to. what is skin for one is armor for another, a near-transparent mask for the third. I've cut it, inked it, and hung it out to dry. Taken it for granted and worried over it like a helpless school-age child. Rubbed it in your face. But reading this here, now, you aren't worried about my skin, you're worried about yours. What weight do you carry? How many score-pounds of flesh do you burden yourself with, and how have you treated it? we are like school-age children in a boutique, choosing the accessories that represent us the best. But the only true honesty is beyond the price that any of us is willing to pay. If you or i were truly honest, we would have shave it off, slowly and inch-by-inch, till muscle and tendon were laid bare. That is how God sees us, not by our skin, but by the secrets and lies we imbed underneath. That is the question it poses to us, God. Words and actions mean nothing. It is that which keeps us up at night that does. understand this and understand everything. Your prayers will not be answered by God. They will be answered by adrenal glands, wire-nerves and evolutionary-impulses. It is how you answer that matters, how you answer that will matter to God. Know this and know everything: until you are willing to bare it all, you are living in Hell.

Posted on 04/23/2003
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