neurosity XI

By Jax NTP
the body’s relationship with language

collapse of the center, the heart, a feeble rat,
lost in his own cage of ribs. the best way to tie

a bow: each knot of intestine more precise
than the last. man’s urgent nostalgia for a district

that exists as a rawboned flicker, but never really knows
if said place is about to exist or if it ever existed at all.

in that frame of tongue, ‘i’ means ‘here,’ it shall
never reference the self. the location where ‘i am’

is not an expression of love or fever or opulence,
but the word of presence — ‘here i am’ — a voiceless

boundary. how can man be sure he’s not just a character
in someone’s lie? where people step out of uteruses

and step right into his dream. the synthesis
of kelp jungles and living fossils. when man

ceases to sleep, he becomes a plaything
of other’s memories. he breathes until

he doesn’t. the way buddha
gains weight — waiting

for emptiness.
the last man

standing
is the first

one,
alone.