7 ︎︎︎ Wormhole or fragmented inverted disco ball fallen on the ground but still shining

A poem in two parts
by Clay A.D.

Part 1


Though the lights flicker the body is always there
Queen on her throne appears in thin walled apartment
holds out a vessel               promise of healing
in chipped thrift store mug             Its storm season
the electricity surges again and she's gone
I sip her medicine while the neighbor plays top 40’s radio
sweat in front of the fan      Dip my fingers into cup to
fish out ice cubes    Nest on the crown to melt
& read in the kitchen a friend and I painted pastel pink

Its 2am          the bloodstream alit like
the highway towering over my block            Car lights
through window draw across walls as if searching for the same thing
again and again       Some answer divined by any phenomena around
looking for patterns Who was I reading back then?
Anaïs Nin, Silvia Federici, Starhawk, Osar Wilde
tear out pages to arrange quotes onto table
Paper pulp dissolves in spilled coffee                 words bleed out

Shoes off & the body not yet landed after work
all habits so deep we didn’t notice them called ‘em normal
2011 a fireball                      did drones even exist yet?
When we were taking the streets did they hover above
watching?    Or was that a year or two later?
                        Amongst the violence there is always beauty
Enter the van and swing a bat at a ceramic lamp
Party in warehouse turned into the digestive system
& watched people fuck on a plush velvet stomach
Cover myself in mirrors to be a disco ball
& reflect the world back on itself

False comfort conceived the body as a punching bag
loose and gain delusion                 believed I had control
Thank God I’m into kink                 and prayer now
The wounds   all ten of them     back full of swords
They held their hands over me to do Reiki &
we mused about ghost scars seen in minds eye
Bruises faded and metabolised into the bloodstream again

Lemons on the table               I boil pink hotdogs
in my pink kitchen   shards of mirror constellate on the table
Throw sparkle on the ceiling to compliment my feeling of clinging
to a small manageable universe                         
                                               I think I remember it was almost morning?       
Edge on the verge of wisdom & madness in my dreams      
I follow a woman     chasing her long hair through a circular door
it opens over a landscape & we in the clouds
She gives me a push and I fall

Wake up spread eagle       my hands outstretched
clutching air                       how do you hold balance?
Answer: you let go                          Invite shame
to your pink stained table             
                                                                       & talk to them until morning*



Part 2


PTSD is time travel I learned this through dancing Found the wormhole by waving my arms like a fool Found the portal in a flashback Found you in an old embarrassing poem Grabbed your curls and dragged you out Come into my life again and again

Be your own friend — horizontally ritualise and reconstitute this whole fucking building Something smells suspect We’ve got demons in the walls of these body cells holding court They’ve been growing and soon the replacement service is coming to clean sanctuary for all except the heart

Draw in straight lines to seem like a normal guy on the public face while the interior hosts a rave or wake depending on the day and who you ask Hello!!! I’m your past pre-trauma self here to assist however I can’t do much but hide here in your elbows and inner eyelids I’m just a sparkle in your mothers eye not even a divisible cell yet But I can be recovered despite

Whispering instructions is the key Is in the stretch and bend You’ve got it baby Its all inside Never forget each one of us is a universe — planet — portal — easy to overlook within all this that we find ourselves in -- but you gotta find the loophole Make a new family from the other friendly dropped-out disobedience bodies you met at the club or support group

Buried the last ten years cicada style Unearth yourself from yourself when you feel the others crawling out at the right time The planet Uranus changing signs I’ve got all I need somehow but it’s the challenge of knowing where to dig up the buried treasure born with

Overhead clocks sound Begin to question the linear marks of time foregrounding the fact I’m communion with the dead Doubt in the system as stands No concept of home or future or fortune

Alone and focused Flip the pancakes in a repetitive motion that reconstitutes life reframed as delight not boredom —  it’s sorting rather than total change Find transformation in those things labelled mundane

I know you’ll roll your eyes when I say this:


PTSD is the haunting is the superpower is the ghost in the shell you used to call the subject but then realised it is a fragmented inverted disco ball fallen on the ground but still shining Trigger point therapy not about a series of questions or reconstituting a true linear narrative Its the process of recording through the body why you only remember the square of light on the wall from the sunrise
                                                     

© Clay A.D.