ONE WAY OUT (a poem)

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Dissonance keeps us from witness.
Witness requires coming up to the chaos
and leaning in,
pushing your face across the plane.

Why would I unsettle my own reality,
why not content yourself in the shack we’ve cobbled?

My own peace.
Perma ruffle
and the feathers frayed.

Hyper-sensitive,
but I didn’t choose this—
for some reason it’s compulsory.

Self pity is a shame.
Sit up, straighten up little soldier.
Classic.
Getting worn down.

The cold math of it,
an exposed nerve,
the tissue still relaying—
signals that it’s not ok.
Alarm bells ringing,
ears bleeding—
this lasts
all day.

Crawling up over the back of head
like a xenomorph,
clamped down,
hijacked host—
we just material
for the beast now.

A vehicle for this life claw,
a carrier for this viral goo,
this thing—
pushing to prod,
to penetrate anything.

A part of the unseen,
demonstrations of invisible strings.

The vacuum of question,
the rip of air being vac’d out,
the gasp and hiss of vent to space—
matter in the torrents
of tornadic psychospheres.

There is no space walk for me.
Just the gobbling up of us
as we slide into installer abyss.

I forgot to smile.
The universe got bored,
and said to hell with me—
if that’s the mode, the posture.
No solo leveling.
No Jin-Woo sacrifice.
Just me and myself
into the red gate.

Stripped of agency,
I can’t even make it across the room.
Caved in.
A lump, a blob and shape.
The rock is gone—
down at the bottom of the lake.

A protest still sings in me.
It finds no voice,
no apparatus,
no means—
so it rolls around,
moaning sick,
sick of being.

To own this
is a certain death,
but not complete—
to lose myself
day by day,
piece by piece.

It’s a Thanos snap.
A gauntlet of matter unraveled.
A coordinate misplaced.

The flakes flipping away in wind,
particles accelerating,
the spindling and sling
of what used to be molecules.

To come back,
in a million—
reborn as cell,
as leg and system.

Climbing up a fresh lattice.
On assignment.
Re-enlisted.

Rejuvenated,
finding some awe
in the parts I hold.

Composite.
The mistake of our consciousness
is assuming it’s alone—
not realizing
we are not a solo render,
but an integrated part
of a composition.

And that,
in this body,
we find meaning.

One way out.