I had a very long dream. The kind of dream where you wake up feeling exhausted, as if wrung dry by the tears that continue to stream down long after waking. Resisting the moments of wakefulness that come rushing, as if dreaming, as if sleeping. You’d always been there, tormenting and humiliating me, but this wasn’t one of those dreams. In that place, I wasn’t haunted by money. Only a thin veil of vexing sounds trailed by like fog. I stood still in the midst of it, or no, perhaps I was in a rural village at its farthest margins. Nobody came looking for me. Instead,nightmares and old tears materialized with every slight move, merging into the river where my feet plunged.I must have been barefoot. I liked it that way. I wonder why. I’m not so sure. I usually keep my shoes on even when walking on a beach. It must have been the feeling of vanishing I had so longed for, to an unknown place and time, beyond the map stretched across the endlessness of my vision. But I wonder, if one could live forever as something that doesn’t exist but isn’t dead, would I be able to throw myself away completely? And I wonder, hypothetically, would my truest self be able to emerge at the outermost place of myself?
I pity myself. Because you’ve never faced me. That’s why I’m pathetic. But what can I do about it? That too is my weight to bear. Still, I enjoy looking at you as you unfailingly stand facing away from me. You’re like a silver Pegasus. With your legs and wings, you can walk across a meadow and even soar the sky. With fur and feathers and leather and sturdy feet. With blood pumping inside you like mine, I’m sure. Faint pink and bubbling. Your fur shines on its own. Not just with a sheen. The longer my eyes lay on that spectral stillness, tears fall profusely, making me want to hold your sublimity in my two hands. How is that you can cause me to writhe in this eternal
pain? Though of course I wouldn’t take a single step further out of here.
Father, I really hate your inevitable, musty masculinity. But do you also hate it? In the same way that I dread penises? In the same way that I’m peevish and envious of gay men even though I’m gay? You were quite the pretty boy once. How do you look back on those days? Do you, like me, want to kill the past? It’s different for you? Then, how is it for you now? Father, how do you feel about yourself now?
You know the shadows, the still lifes that moan as they move, the bodies that stir, unable to release an ounce of their love. I’ve been watching them. They’re often seen as things that deserve to disappear without a trace. No, no no. I’m going to hold on to them. By locking arms with those disappearing bodies, I’m going to defend us. Stand in solidarity. Hey, don’t laugh. I’m quite serious. I recognize those sorrows, the wishes of those shadows that were left as pornographic data. I see myself in them. Because I know. I know what it feels like to have my body sold, the cursed sorrows of having exchanged money for those things. Their value is not their price. Neither is it the price paid for the time of the briefly drifting bodies.
What do you think of ghosts? Things that appear human but are non-human. Those opaque names that
had to stay out of sight, fading away to brush past. I think of Casper the Friendly Ghost. Do you know Casper? The specter who was supposed to frighten but instead approached people to befriend them. I used to cry so much watching that as a kid, you know? I wonder why. Because I’m a monster. An apparition. I was pathetic. Only in solitude did time flow, allowing me to shed my tears. The younger me had to hold his breath. But is anything different now? What’s... changed?
You know the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, right? The one where he looks back at the threshold of the underworld and loses his love forever. Do you know what happened afterwards? Apparently, after losing Eurydice, Orpheus could no longer love women and turned instead to men, spreading this homosexuality far and wide. Eventually, he was torn to pieces by the women who were infatuated with him. And have you seen the movie Shame (2011)? You should watch it if you haven’t. The male protagonist is addicted to sex. On the outside, he appears clean and put together like one of those white guys with his shirt sleeves rolled up over taut forearms. In a moment of surrender, he also engages in gay sex. Is this what my love resembles? A relinquishing of self, confronting the consequences of sins. No? How can you be so sure.
Don’t go wiping down my world. I am crying right now.
I attended art school. I studied the history of art, and I’m alive as a living dead in the present moment, yet to fossilize. Sorrow never betrays me; that is always true and never wrong. I am not real. I am fake. Out of kindness or malice, it makes no difference. Because even on the days I swallowed hundreds of pills to kill myself, I managed to survive in false time.
I am not your colony. I am my small room.
Well, nothing feels off, right? Isn’t it only beautiful? Nothing feels off. Don’t you think so? Those things thattwinkle in the dark couldn’t be more precious. The weeping starlight, resolute against the blankness of the night sky. Don’t you miss those scenes? You’ve not seen them yet? Oh, that’s a pity. Then, wait here for a moment.
