EXSPLEENING
Venus Goes Retrograde and the Lymph Nodes in My Left Elbow are Swollen
A prose poem, written August 26-27, 2023.
Look at you, facing rebirth;
Opportune and divine.
-June 12, 2023
Part 1
A Prognosis
I am now something which defies explanation more than ever before while also being incredibly simple. But forevermore complex. Kidding. Eat shit sleep repeat. Supposedly life is lived in between all that but what if eating shitting sleeping is all you can manage? Can I do all that body-full and mindfully?
Thinking is overrated, trust me. Singing is definitely a better activity but that also involves your lungs and vocal cords and maybe those body parts are a bit exhausted from the spontaneous weeping you can’t control.
Reading can be great but sometimes a bit triggering, and might send the brain back into overthinking things. Stories in all forms of media and communication surround you on all fronts and a lot of them are sad or emotional in some way (if they don’t evoke emotion, there’s no real appeal or connection) and maybe you also need a break from emotion.
Ok, let’s just stretch our body for a total of 30min max because we know that is always good. Let’s not think about how out of shape we are, about how we were starting to develop upper body strength from all the tree pruning but we’ve since lost all those gains due to a lame year of exhaustion. Forget all the beneficial squatting and weeding we did last summer in the garden. We can’t squat this summer so all the weeds grew back. Starts to all seem pointless…
Right. Not supposed to think about that shit. How is a person supposed to not think about every fucking thing that relates to every other fucking thing?
I could lay here in bed and try not to think, try not to feel, but that’s a worthless and fruitless pursuit.
Life moves a person. If Life isn’t moving you in some way, I have some bad news.
Life is always moving me. I think the trick is to move with it. To try and move together. The wind will blow. Will it knock you down or will you hop in a boat and let it fill your sails? Can I be friends with the wind? Can I be friends with the movement? Hey Life, how do you feel about me? Am I the cutest mess you ever did help create? Aw, I’m blushing now.
Part 2
A Prayer
Mercury goes backward, and I rejoice for dwindling reasons. Patron Saint of my womb is an androgynous trickster, sounds about right.
Inanna, have you ascended from the depths of hell yet? Is it Queendom time? I’m not asking for a crown, I just want to be above ground again, please. There are no atheists in foxholes or in lion’s bellies. Ok. I swear, I get it for real this time.
I’m fine hanging out with the dead, they can’t hurt me, and they can pull off some pretty miraculous magic. But for the love of this brief thread stitch of being Grace Lucille, can I get along with the living?
Breathing, in and out, next to my heart thump thumping body. Bodies need bodies, the warm flesh needs more warm flesh. These pathways need some rewiring. The heart is electric, electric city inside you and me. Our hands touch to create bridges, feel the sparks travel back and forth. Our touching bodies make an electric circuit, let’s pretend we are one thing instead of two, because that’s actually the truth.
The crickets chirp because that’s just what they do, and wouldn’t you love to feel like that? To know exactly what you’re supposed to do and just do it? They sing sing sing. I am meant to sing. Who will sing with me?
The bleeding finally calms down in time for the arm to swell up. Don’t worry, they say. Worrying is what I’m best at, kinda hard to let that go, ya know? There’s a fine line between enlightenment and psychosis. There’s a fine line between the shaking of the spirit and plain sickness. I don’t know which side I’m on. Does it really matter?
I’m always shining bright, even in my darkness. There’s no getting away from your name and function. Projectors gotta project, reflectors gonna reflect, and bright lights keep on shining no matter what.
I am Lucille’s daughter.
Part 3
A Prophecy
The darkness ripens with peace for the first time in a long time. Nightmares are scarce now, though not altogether absent. The dead are crowding this room and I no longer fear them, they embrace me as their child. Leave it to us, they say, We’ll take care of it.
I dissolve into a blissful puddle of peach sheets and pillows. I am neither here nor there, my body floats in the womb of mother while my spirit hovers in wisdom too great for the waking world. I can never carry it forward, my memory wiped clean each morning.
The rite of Holy Communion begins to reveal its truth to me the morning after I vomit. O Mother Earth, fertile ground of our being. O Father Sky, whose light conceives new life. Jesus appears as Dionysus, the original Lord of Fermentation (cheers!) and I feel his warm presence in my gut, digesting lifetimes of pain that I’ve never been able to digest on my own.
Dionysus, be my lord and sexy savior. Jesus is still alright with me, as long as his crown grows horns and his beard turns to moss. See rivers flow from his mouth and sparrows nest in his hair. His mycelial love flows through my body, my swollen arm is a flowering wand, just wait for the magic mushrooms to appear. Take, eat, this is my body bursting for you.
Healing takes the crooked way through the forest, and I know I am home. Baba Yaga cackles. We are as hairy as a wild lioness, true ruler of the pride. I see my grandmother’s eyes in the eyeless dolls I’ve been making since her death. The dead live in me. Baba Yaga cackles again.
I dream of yellow vomit, of burdock roots in the toilet. For once, the toilet actually flushes instead of clogs. This is a good sign. I’m not stable until 11am. My yellow confusion is blinding every morning. If you have a defined spleen, I may just fall in love with you. Late summer blues, Goldenrod sings her pretty ditty and Ragweed ruins it every year.
We barely made it to the beach this summer. I will be dreaming of water for the next 8 months. My bedroom has been both a coffin and a womb, life wants to live and the dead want to rest. I’ve mercifully killed many lives this year. I’ve triumphantly given birth to just as many. I am the creator and destroyer of worlds. Have you ever peered into the galaxy of my mind?
Here now, I lay to rest the tired bodies of monotheism and monogamy. Here now, I raise to life the multi-bodied wings and legs and many-chambered hearts of pluralism. Sing! Dance! Love! We’ve lived this life a million times already, I am starting to remember. Remember with me…
My sole purpose in life is to fall in love and seduce every one of you into the magic this existence has to offer. The flowers bloom to bring you pleasure. As do I.
My arm is a flowering wand. Take my hand, feel the healing awaken within you.
Artwork by thevibrationofatoms on Tumblr