parasite

the worst bit about parasites is that they become part of us. they get inside and it becomes difficult to get them out without taking a part of ourselves with them, leading to a strange and awful combination of loss aversion that makes you hesitant to tear them out, and self-alienation that makes you feel less like yourself. when an enemy has got inside, there's always sacrifice, whether you have to cut out a hunk of your flesh or scorch part of your home. parasites also tend to evade detection; to camouflage, confuse and hide. sometimes they permanently become part of you. did you know, roughly 10% of our DNA is viral? from hundreds of millions of years of co-evolution with animals, little remnants that migrated into our genes and managed to stay.

There was a time i was full of parasites...

The bugs in my bed,
they would come out at night,
get under the sheets with me
and sup from my blood,
while i dreamt of drowning 
in a crunchy sea of little exoskeletons.
So i didn't sleep.

The bugs in my dick,
they would lie and wait
until i was weak
and then they'd come out
just under the frenulum, like an evil flower
and make me afraid to ever touch again,
to ever reach out, to even start talking.

So i resigned myself to always be alone.

The bugs in my ear,

they had banged too hard and degraded my drum,

so the surgeon had to throw it away

and fashion one new from some nearby material,

but i knew beyond doubt that the bugs were still there,
waiting for weakness
to come round again.

The surgery had failed.
So i stopped listening.

The bug in my heart,
it had worn through my spirit

after years of loving; chronically and terminally,
this parasitoid that yearned for me so,
and wanted - demanded - that i stay, stay, stay,
when more than anything i needed to be free.

But the bug had connived such complete menticide,

manipulating my mind beyond authenticity and self-preservation,
to the point of dishonesty and self-deception.
So i dug my heels in deeper.

The bugs in my brain,
they'd scuttle round the gyri and sulci of my cortex,
while i lay in bed till the late afternoon,
and re-mind me of how paralysed i was.
"yes, you're trapped", they'd say, over and over
"and how are you going to get out?"
"i don't know", i'd say, wanting it all to just melt away
"we know a way", they'd say.
So i made some plans, just in case.

parasites will wait till you're at your weakest to strike

they're brutal like that
they don't give a fuck

your weakness is their time to shine

and start taking up residence in your most private of places

you'll come back home, exhausted

and they're sitting in your favourite chair

they're eating all the food in your fridge

they're fucking your wife and having all the fun

i eventually got out of this downward spiral
i burned my bed and half of my possessions
i found people who understood
i got a hearing aid and i let people cater to me
i severed the ties and stood on my own
i threw away the plans and got rid of the implements

i cut out the contaminated flesh and gave myself time to heal

i knew i would never be the same again

but also, i knew that wouldn't stop me

Childhood Memory 4

To repeat a consistent message of this series of childhood memories: we should hold on to them before they fleet, because they offer us insight into earlier versions of ourselves, before the many augmenting masks of age have developed over our nascent form. For as these layers calcify, for reasons better or worse, they cloak that initial trajectory, such that after mask upon mask of development, we lose sight of our origin, and in doing so forget part of ourselves. In doing so we forget ourselves. When we don't record we have no reference, and while all recall of memory is a reworking, to formalise it is to resist the erasure that is so often the temptation of our unconscious instincts. So perhaps, if trauma allows, we should be careful not to scrub our childhood memories to the point of sanitizing them beyond recognition, let alone sweep them under the rug like unwanted dust. They tell us something about ourselves: our fears and insecurities, our deeper impulses and desires, and this is useful information if we are to learn about ourselves, to know ourselves, to be ourselves, as per the advice of the delphic existentialists.

Like the time Mrs Rose* the cover teacher filled in for Mrs Pedone in Year 2 (thus placing the class within the range of 6-7 years old). She opened a book to read from a selection of stories we had been working through and was going through the titles one by one. At each, the children would chorus some kind of disappointment, having already heard the story. The class was getting very noisy and i was getting very bored. Mrs Rose questioned the class about another of the stories and in my boredom I volunteered at high volume "WE'VE HAD THAT ONE AND WE DIDN'T LIKE IT!" I remember scrunching up my eyes as I said it. I must have said it very loudly indeed because there was an immediate lull in the room as it became apparent some transgression had occurred. The obligatory "ommm...", worked it's way like a fire around the room: like a prepubescent incantation. Mrs Rose, for the most part a lovely old lady - switched - and became authoritative, keen to weed out this outburst and restore order to the class. "Who said that!?" She demanded. At once the entire room of 20-30 kids, all cross legged and jam-packed on the bobbly red carpet with me in the centre, swung their arms in my direction, their accusing, precise, and unequivocal fingers outstretched, forming a crop-circle of little limbs, all pointing in at me as its epicentre. In a pathetic and desperate attempt to defer blame onto someone other than myself, I had stuck my lone finger out at the kid next to me: one lone voice in a sea of accusation. My face went red. I don't think I even brought myself to make eye contact with Mrs Rose. I honestly had not meant her any personal affront, but I had got impatient with the whole scenario. Someone had to say something and cut through the natter and murmuring and indecision, and now that had backfired dramatically.

I have returned to this moment of my life more than any other and i still burn with embarrassment when i think of it. Why so? I realised the other day, that this represents my biggest fears: to be found out, to be shunned, to be made an outsider, to have made a fool of myself in front of everyone and be rejected by all, to lose the respect of my peers.

*Yet another time we had Mrs Rose cover a class, a boy whose name escapes me, answered the register with "Yes, Mrs Rosebush!", provoking a similar reaction, although fingers weren't necessary in rooting out the culprit on that occasion, as he had boldly/stupidly put his opinion directly to his name. Despite the ensuing scolding, i remember being impressed by the word-play and endearing myself to this otherwise distant student.

Sprezzatura

we are what we repeatedly do, 
even what we pretend to be

i tried so hard at not trying

that it became easier to just go ahead and try
and so i tried and tried
so hard i wasn't even thinking about trying or not trying any more

*

all pursuance of authenticity is contrived
and contrivance itself is a form of authenticity
wherein attempts to be real are false, really
but falsehoods can be layered so thick
that they form a solid sediment
one that comprises a foundation 

a fundamental fabric of our psychic world

*

forgive me for not being able to forgive
the performances of false teachers and true charlatans

and the trumpeting troubadours that lead us nowhere

all singing and all dancing
enchanting us with the belief

that hard work is easy
all words and whimsy
all prophet's koan and jester's riddle

all pre-re-hearsed off-the-cuff sweat-less toil

*

everything worth anything in this world is effort

even all the stuff that isn't
either/or, just graft and commit
and churn that milk into butter