Monday 21 November 2011

Milk In Fridge: A Journey To Elysium

While I die
I practice being dead in the dark -
there's not much else to do here.

All around me death encroaches.
The cold stems it off
but I wish it wouldn't try to:
I am ready to separate.

Sometimes I tremor with the
shudder of something distant:
it passes right through me, then
nothing but darkness -
the waiting goes on...
(Isn't there more to life than this?)
...But the waiting goes on so long
that I tell myself I was only
imagining the tremor, and I
return to my thoughts, placid...

I don't think you'll
believe what just happened:

one moment I was
pretending to be dead,
and the next there was a
sudden peeling of suction.
I lost my balance in the
shake and sway: this was
death coming to take me away -
then the light came and drenched me.

Was it a miracle? What is a miracle?

Another quake, and a squeeze of
air, and all was dark again, and I
sloshed from side to side, slowing,
until I was still - which was when I
realised that I wasn't dead after all,
just back to waiting for death.

~

It's all gone very quiet since the light
came and went. Sometimes I wish it
hadn't come at all - there's so much
more for me to worry about now:

What was the light? Where did it come from?
How did it appear? Why did it appear?
What made it appear?

With all these questions I can't
pretend to be dead nearly as
much as I used to.
The light doesn't seem to have
affected the others - they're still here,
dying slowly. I suppose I am too,
but somehow it feels that I've
more to live for now I'm thirsty...

There's something else: when I saw the light
I knew it was light the moment I saw it.

How did I know it was light? If I
knew it was light then surely I must have
seen light before, right? Which means I've not
always been here in this dark: I came from
somewhere else... Now I think of it,
I can remember my birth - is that unusual?

'Life-giving, I was teased into the world:
I mirrored the morning moon, divine, as I
struck the bucket-basin with a splatter.
It was a wet baptism.'

Wow, that was vivid!
Did I just have an out of body experience?

Air, sky, the moon: I am the
colour of the moon. I've never
thought about what colour I am before -
I don't think it matters.
Anyway, I transcend the colour of skin.

~

'We've all become so good at
pretending we're dead that we've
forgotten how to stay alive.'
I've been meditating on this
and have had my epiphany:
I don't want to pretend anymore,
and I don't want to live
surrounded by others
who are pretending. I'm not
content with slow death, so

I'm clotting - speeding up
my end: crusting over,
churning myself into the
smell of a corpse. Please,
I don't want you feeling
sorry for me - I love the
feeling of rapid change.
The others don't seem to
understand - not yet -
but I'll have the last laugh!

I am separating: stagnant, potent.
Now there are stages of dark within the
darkness when I know nothing. I drown in
myself, clogged to the throat. Heavy, bleary
shadow... A familiar convulse of
thunder rips through my death: light has returned
at the brink: divine illumination.

Weightless, I am hoisted from my sleeping
grave - I fly the flight of bliss; I dollop
into searing heat, am stirred into my
Elysium. She takes me to her lips,
blows the kiss of death...a sudden choke, and
I am propelled, airborne, through light, towards
my destiny, laughing my final laugh.

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    I saw you at The Poetry Place last night and thought your 'Milk in Fridge: A Monologue' was excellent! :) I'm happy to have found your blog so I could read the rest, but sorry that you didn't have the chance to finish it yourself.

    Keep up the good work :)

    Regards,

    Martine

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  2. Hi Martine,

    Thank you so much! It means a lot that you went to so much trouble to find this and read the ending. Glad you enjoyed it, and hope to see you at another Poetry Unplugged night soon!

    All the best,

    Alex x

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