Let Us Sample Protection Together

When I was little I cut off the heads of many lords. I can’t count on the energy that took to rise in me at will, but I’ve strengthened my ability to make a stand-firm surface. A steady gaze will drive conflicted information away, back to the abyss from whence it came, but I’ll be right here the morning after, wracked in a private shame too awful to admit and of no consequence at all. I work very hard not to let myself go. Any channel can tell. Due process appears in beauty and misgiving at once; an agility borne from creative malice, a benign insecurity. The plain truth: I forget the curtains are open sometimes and the hands wander. The room stares back from its things: They understand the end of the world, will not waste time feeling your pain, and every- thing tragic in between need not be known. I don’t want love or remorse to follow I want them in the way, things to burst through corollaries to be roped and tackled by surprise, get killed, and thank you. One fate transforms into another, but I won’t touch that bandaged story. I won’t belong to this scripted conversation, though I may play along. Identity theft accepting renewal orders, copycat pre-emptive attacks an obscure murder string on the public glide by sight, the victim a John doughnut pining for leadership from the passenger seat. The threat of meaning reassures: I know it’s being made for me. Am I supposed to believe we’re receiving information? Can I defect back to curiosity in the moonlight, stone rabbit? Hit on by Echo, I go cold for the love of my own exile, and while I hope, my flesh explodes into an arrangement of stars pestered by darkness. Those aren’t birds you hear, just their corresponding holes in the sky. All the bottled water isn’t fooling anyone.