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the loneliness of birth.

something is never going to happen.
somebody's going to walk out of the forest next to highway 95
with their face whipped raw by branches
and their naked body wrapped in bloody ferns 
and tell us all what we should be doing.
nature is going to fuck with us again.
something is never going to happen.
somebody's going to look at you on the sidewalk 
with such intensity that you splinter
into small fragments of ice.
a kitten's eye is going to turn into a universe
when you look at it closely enough.
you are never going to look at it closely enough.
something is never going to happen.
a lover's face will retreat above the street 
and turn into fine white ash.
face after face will turn on heartbeaten sidewalks
and be covered in hair, 
eyes will be obscured 
by tar-black raindrops,
 
curtains will flicker over the daily explosions of the sun
that never end the power of its light,
preachers will repeat themselves 
disc jockeys will repeat themselves
you will have sex with mannequin after mannequin
occasionally touching the throbbing heart within the flesh
and something will never quite happen.
people on subways will stare into the fluorescent tiles
to avoid your face.  the moon will belch 
like a chimney clogged with ash.
her red hair will whisper
in front of her face like a stage curtain.
the tellers at the bank will laugh at your jokes, 
then die in their sleep.
your beautiful signature will be swallowed by flames.
something will never happen.
the lead singer of a rock band will point directly at you
standing with your blurred spirit in the crowd
sweating in an insignificant portion of the universe
and his lyrics will be garbled
and made indecipherable by the drag of time.
 
everyone on main street is on fire.  
their clothing is flickering with flame
and dripping off in polyester blobs, 
simmering in rain-puddles
below their wounded nudity
as time clicks and ripples 
outside the town hall's clock tower.
god's false teeth are rotting.
everyone on earth is free 
to do whatever they want to do.
it's safer to do nothing.
it's dangerous to do nothing.
the sunset will trample you 
into a smear of delighted grease
if you turn your tiny head
to stare into the beauty of an eclipse
while stepping through the crosswalk.
something will never happen.
you'll buy a piece of clothing for a friend
and when they go to put it on
it'll fall to the floor like a dropped handkerchief
because they won't be there anymore.
their skin has become undifferentiated matter.
their frenzied heart beats in the floorboards 
and behind the silver noise of mirrors.
you rent rooms in strange towns and look for
people who resemble them.  
almost everybody resembles them.
they never existed loudly enough.
their coffin was a shadow sprouting grass.
something never happened.
 
fish will leap out of the sea
and walk like men
with the sun in their amphibian hair.
nothing will always happen.
the newscaster's face will hurtle 
through your screen like an asteroid.
you will go out to buy the Sunday newspaper 
and everyone on the street will have translucent skin.
their veins will glare at you, 
coursing with bright blood beneath their flesh.
your tongue will be glued to the roof of your mouth.
something incredible will always happen.
the sky will draw you up into the tent of its mouth 
and you will flutter and hang perfectly like a hummingbird.
nobody has ever touched you.
the air evaporates around you.
but if you walk outside your door 
once in your lifetime
everyone on earth has touched you.
you have to walk quickly 
to avoid running out of oxygen.
your facial hair is like moss.
you are a cold, shining stone 
thrown far from your parents.
you are so alone in your flesh 
that you become more fragile 
than death taking its sweet time 
with a single smile,
something from the darkest waters of the ocean,
where the strangest beauties swim low in the earth
so that human eyes will not be startled 
out of their little calendars
by the long glass teeth 
of their everlasting midnight's gorgeous lives.

you will become so human 
that the rest of your race
will look at you as inhuman,
something from those dark and perfect waters
where gravity deepens into an eternal pregnancy,
something that has finally happened.

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