shuji
shred, shred, shred, shred.
it is the sound from a shredder against which you leaned when you dropped that cup of coffee and blamed it on the ghosts that had their claws pressed against your skin, tattooing the maps of lost golden cities on your back, elbows and neck while the shredder kept going, slicing the documents from those we had never met face to face so it was easier to push the button.
they descended down to the caves, like ancestors, forefathers, those who sang the ancient song i had to bear in my heart
i sat outside the cave alone, pretending to smoke, staring at the aquamarine sky and counting all the times i had been cowardly.
what do you do with it? put it in a nice little jar, light a candle for it, fondle it, watch it with eyes full of tears, what a nice pet, what a nice flower, dried up, hung to the ceiling never to be forgotten until it withers to a dustbunny, a pile of memories messing up your precious floor
"bourbon," she said with a demanding voice. the pianist hit wrong chords. i stayed, after all i was meant to be here, that was my firm belief. i stayed even though i had promised to stay away but when her bourbon words tied me up.
you could move. they said you couldn't, yet your fingers played with the pattern of the rain, you lips could form the most amazing words any of the nurses had heard and your smile could lift the entire ceiling off the hospital.
i told this to all of them and although they kept smiling a polite professional smile, i saw a glimpse of your joy in their eyes
"i want to spend i night in a freezer."
"you're not a corpse."
"i'm dead. i have a corpse. it's a same thing."
"here they say: i have a body. not corpse. body."
slipping notes in people's pockets. that what we used to do before the revolution. nothing political, nothing especially fancy but oh the fun we had, scribbling those tiny petty words of couragement and then sort of attacking people, like reversed pickpocketing. some of us never got caught.
and we used to dig them, remember. even deeper than those who had dug before us. you glared at the sun, as proud as ever, even prouder than me even though i was the emperor.
"you know, there are other trenches, in the sea," i used to say and you laughed and said we were going to bombed by whales and sharks and eels and all the other marine creatures you could name.
you came to the court, poor as a peasant.
soon i learned to separate your steps from all the others.
"they will call me a traitor."
"why do you even care?"
all the silver and gold raining down on you.
who are you
i lost the count of all the hours
we've been hiding far too long
the stormwind still blows
you held the world on your shoulder
when i was too weak
now i'm the one
carrying the lifeless you
on my hunched shoulders
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