Like pixie dust in my veins, that’s what it feels like, like some Chinaman scampering around inside me, pricking my veins with his tiny acupuncture needles, my organs and bones, in my bones, there he is with his goatee swimming laps in my marrow, and with those itty bitty needles. The Buddha blocking my small intestine. Confucius in my sinuses.
Confucius says, Do not be angry with happiness, be happy with anger.
You forget what a joke it all is, that it’s a dream, everything starts to seem so real.
And you want to keep living in this world, nothing more or less than itself. Pixie dust in your veins. Who are you and where are you from. You tiny Asian man.
What do you want from me. What do you, want from me. I am God. God. What could you want from me? What is it you ask of God? What could you possibly want from me? I cannot make you feel this way. I cannot. I cannot make you God. For there is only one of me. And what you ask is not within my power.
I speak and it is spoken. My words emerge in writing, my tongue is sharp and carves letters in the air, words, No, my tongue does not speak Mandarin, I cannot pay you now, you stingy, stingy and tiny man.
Where did you learn your craft? For I know all crafts. All skills are mine, are of me, and I possess them. All crafts. But I do not know acupuncture, for it is an art, No, I do not know acupuncture. You cannot tickle yourself. You cannot perform acupuncture on yourself. And you would have to be very small to run through the thoroughfares of my circulatory system. And you might become intoxicated by the pixie dust there.
I cannot anymore listen to these adages, No, I cannot live my life by adage. Oh, oh yes, well that is a good one.
As though your eyelids might close and the weight of them drag you to the ground, weigh down your suit of skin, pull you to the ground to your knees, you want to climb out and say, Look! I am not my skin! But you cannot for you are.
Eyelids heavy as organs, bones, suffocating from the inside out. Concrete running through my veins.
If only it worked like that. The best day of my life. I had a purpose, and met the only woman I ever loved.
Beautiful in her Spandex tights as she stood in line at Starbucks:
Her lips mouthing SOY as she tried to hear the ocean in her phone:
I know what frequents your dreams.
The two women I ever loved.
Beautiful in her leopard print pants as she spoke the words NO WHIP:
Her kids hollering as they danced in tribal celebration:
I know your innermost desires.
Bless me Father for I have sinned.
I worked at a hospital: I was Surgeon, Chief Surgeon, Chief Surgeon and Emperor. I was Janitor and Orderly and Nurse and Patient.
At some hospitals so I hear they steal medication, the Pills, Narcotics they call them, where I worked we stole Formaldehyde. They use it in hospitals as some kind of disinfectant, every day we would stash swollen bags of Formaldehyde in our lockers, carry them out with us at the end of the day. Our lunch boxes and bags of Formaldehyde.
I don’t know who started it, someone must have been doing some at-home embalming and it turned into a trend, a habit. Not the embalming but the stealing. Maybe the embalming. Maybe it got you fucked up, I wouldn’t know. It’s Formaldehyde. No, I don’t know, maybe someone was a photographer.
I liked to imagine everyone going home and embalming themselves, each night, pickling themselves in Formaldehyde, then wrapping themselves in cloths or dirty rags and climbing into bed. To sleep. The sleep of mummies. Then waking.
Confucius says, Do not belong to sleep, sleep to belong.
When it plays like a movie in your brain. Like Gladiator, something exciting. And you grind your groin against the sheets and think of leopard print pants and too-tight tights and want to start humping but don’t because God is watching. He might judge you for your sins. And it’s one thing to fuck your hand but fucking the bed is different, beds are inanimate. At least your hand has a pulse. Unless you sit on it and give yourself the Stranger.
I loved those women and followed them home. Screaming and waving like they couldn’t contain themselves. Wanting me so bad. Foggy, foggy, foggy and a movie in my brain. Then concrete, whoomph!, and you sit down and cry.
As a Surgeon I would operate on people even when they didn’t want me to. They would scream, You aren’t the Surgeon!, as they fell asleep, and I would say, Shhh, you are a sick, sick man.
Like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he kills everybody then stands in the Coliseum and screams at the Emperor. That’s what you feel like all the time. Like you’ve killed everybody and are screaming, or want to scream. You are a sick, sick man.
One more fix, one more fix, embalm me and let me sleep until I wake.
Confucius says, Do not wake to die, die to wake.
You are the Emperor.