Our white coated gods, not immortal, but timeless, have proclaimed that we will always find ways to kill ourselves:
Open mouthed gaping at the polished phonograph
They continue to say, what we previously mistook for everlasting life is merely the desire for unceasing beauty – these are not verses, but gasping.
Death is certain.
Suicide almost just as certain.
The static buzzes for the listener removes his spectacles to be cleaned.
We are nothing more than sensations, so says the gods. We are nothing more than passions, and desires, and lip-licking
Heavily breathed smells of seawater and spice and flesh
And smoke
Spectacles in hand, he doesn’t replace them to his face.
With enough force it would all be metal and glass shards, a violent sensation to create or remove years from his life
- which of these is uncertain.
The gods speak of chemicals and neurology. Truth. Drugs to fire synapses towards blindfolded men standing against a brick wall.
No one cries against that wall, it is only a step towards schizophrenia.
With that the listener resolves to redemption. Forgiveness in destruction.
I will see in my blindness, he thinks.
I will live one sensation and sacrifice another. I will lose one sense to feel my heart pumping. I will live. I will kill my desire for beauty.
There is no static in the air, but in his ears. Eyes blinded, fingers bleeding.
He touches the blood that comes from his heart and through his palms. He didn’t account for the images he would fashion in his mind.
Beauty cannot be killed, says the gods, we can only kill ourselves. Intentionality slips in and out of consciousness when we delude asbestos and phenylketonuria. We are cities of smog to hang neon signs. We are methane.
The words jumble, the man weeps, but no more can blur his vision. Beauty is everywhere. We can only kill ourselves, he dreams, and hopes immortality is mistaken.