Of Caves and Corpses

There is a man swaying outside her window covered in bees. His whole head is alive with them. He shivers with wings. He moves and some of them, fat, sated, fall off him and land with a soft wet sound like spilled honey on the floor. When she opens her eyes there is just the sound of the ocean and the sway of shadow as a tree is taken by a stray breeze. When she closes them the man is back. Even wakeful, closed eyed, he is there and so she must not close her eyes or he will climb through the half closed window and the bees will drip onto the floor inside. She lies as still as she can and listens to a thousand wings beat, light and fast as her heart.

It is not about me

Why do I feel anxious almost all the time?

My world has shrunk down to a tiny sphere and I am at the center of it. This is not the proper scale of things. This is not the right configuration. There is no specific 'now' and I am not even the center of my body let alone my universe.

90% of the DNA in my body is not human. It is the stuff of the microcosm. It is bacteria, fungii and other microorganisms. When everything 'me' about this collection of cells, other microbial life will flare into action. Everything will continue to live or to die just as the cells in my body life and die every day of my life.

I am made of the exact same chemical mix as has made the stars. I am of the stars. So what part of me lives? What part of me dies? Why does the algorithm hold the mirror up to  this face and reflect the human part of me back to the endless loop of look-see-look-see.

I wrote a book, a three legged thing like a stool. One of the legs is wobbly, or so I am told. If I sit on it I might fall. I feel myself fall. I have worked for the longest time to shore up all the legs. I thought I was done but I am caught up in the look-see-look-see. I feel terror, thinking I might have to go back to the desk and rewrite this for the hundredth time.  Take one leg away, is the advice. Hang it on the wall. Something with length and breadth just like any other book. But the depth is missing.  Good enough to publish. Sure. Good enough.

Why do I want to put yet another book out in the world. Because it might be THE book, THE one. If I put it out in the world it might be more popular than my other books. It is certainly more likeable. But I am not writing to be liked. I will not win hearts or awards. I will stubbornly refuse to throw an easy book into the pile of easy books. This was never an easy book. This was a book that looked outward to the universe. I will not be dissappointed every time I look on my shelf and see the two dimensional thing.

One day I will be dead and yet every cell in my body will live on or be re-purposed. The book will not change as my cells do.  The book is fixed and unchanging.

I will not write it for others. I will take it back and make it right if I have to work it and work it till the 10% of me that is human is off being something else.