The secret to surviving any deprivation is to have a mind. Humans are aftershocks of the divine. The beloved slips behind a veil of longing. Through writing I hope to confer transcendence, and the first task is to decide what is worthy of that light. Sometimes the rate of collapse is exponential. I was forever fleeing my old selves, attempting to render the past unreal. Many of my personality traits were crucifixions. Madonna the mutating. I called the dark Madonna and, ecstatic, the dark Madonna came. The ego is a house of cards. I learned to love even the things that sought to destroy me. To seek perfection (of self) is to undergo a metamorphosis. My writing also mutates. Metamorphosis is always flight. Yes by then I was an obsessive yes the sepulchral of light yes it wanted to die yes “rock bottom” was a subtle flex yes I was metamorphosis yes fire was a burial of light yes I split my self once or twice it was the alchemist of desire that struck me at sundown like burgeoning white lightning yes the dark Madonna was rising.
Narcotic night lily
The locusts were in burning splendour
Yes revelation was annihilation
But so was creation
Summer of locusts, I was a grave then
The veil to eternity was shimmering
And I was witnessing
Narcotic night lilies
Like a god that bullied me
Yes I wanted
So haunt me
Every revelation was annihilation
Desire burnt like devastation in me
The desperation of a narcotic night lily
It was burning splendour to me
The Rapture is not door
This is the Darkness you waited for
The alphabet of flames
It was burning splendour
I wanted
And I went under
Like Persephone to the underworlds
(Oh the pomegranates and the persimmons I ate desire was a grave of flames and I wanted like a godhead)
And I witnessed paradise as an outcast
The locusts were in burning splendour
Yes revelation was annihilation
Madonna I called and Madonna she came
The locusts were in burning splendour
Season of bacchanals
The Maenads cast their trawling nets across the darkness
And the darkness rose!
Madonna of the Maenads forsaken in flame
Yes revelation was annihilation
It was made of me
Madonna the seamstress
Mended the night stitches
And I witnessed
The gravity of the angels
Arise to paradise
The mutilation!
Why suffer heaven twice?
Yes revelation was annihilation
And the mornings were midnights
Desire awakening, the locusts were in burning splendour
Like Persephone of the persimmons and pomegranates I went to the underworld
The gravity of the angels
Rapture and revelation
Desire burned like devastation in me
It was burning splendour to me
I witnessed night lilies in the shimmering
Immortality had a lease on me
You vanished like a night lily in an oblivion
Cruel locust summer
I lay in a field of narcotic night lilies
Like muses in burning splendour
My split self as if a god bifurcated me
Yes revelation was annihilation
Yes desire was a wasteland
Grave of flames
and I wanted cremation—