AMAXOPHOBIA: An Exploration of My Very Sane Sickness

We are tissues of charioteers—willowy-brained, multi-tasking, ADHD, sociopathic monkeys with paper soft skin and haughty skeletons. And in our veiny, twitching claws we clutch the reins of these wheezing Titans, beasts of that blitzkrieg of metallic roars and violent, ear-splitting smears of color and sound. Clutch the reins of these death machines, these ungodly motor-toothed monsters we send blasting through the air, numb to the red splattering of clumps and bumps they might chance to inhale into their wheels.

 Every moment spent in the bright, vibrating skulls of these manic mechanisms, I spend thinking of exploding kneecaps and dull, sick thumps and bones snapping like twigs and messy limbs. Of flattened animals, someone’s Fluffy or Reuben or Max crushed against the pavement in a stolen fraction of a moment, their breath tugged out of them by instantaneous fingers. Of an outburst of atoms and gravity sideways before your brain knows what hit you. Then BANGshudderBANG as the mammoths of your own furious egos pound you one, twice, three times more with their enormous knuckled fists. And you’re shuddering inside like a mosquito. You’re in a seventh grader’s egg drop design, and your insides are running out of you.

            
That phantom of a nightmare, your own cringing eyeballs sliding over to the other passengers. Cadavers. Mannequins. Unmoving displays of messy muscles. And the dread that erupts onto you like a hellish thunderstorm. The emotions, frozen in little tubes in your body, seeing your life in wriggling pieces on the ground. You can see it all ahead of you. That once-glowing orb, beautiful in black space, now deflated—spiraling—vomiting—sick.

             
Or gone. Gone! The notion of the nightmare of darkness that might follow that superb supernova of glass and sound and shrieking air! Such an awful concerto, the runny watercolor world draining into the ‘event horizon’ of your own shredded skull and surrendering to such a profound and absolute silence that even microorganisms tremble before it. Before you have time to gasp.

             
I am resigned to recognize this chilling fabric within us, which the impact of atoms upon one another has the power to so unceremoniously tug through our throats. Foolish, of course, to fancy that it might dwell within me forever, by which time the world and my love of it would wither before me, but I withhold the right to dread its unannounced and shuddering confiscation from this temple of my body. My identity, surely, is sacred—but what I face everytime I slide into one of these things is the potential sacrifice of my world. All of it could disappear, at any moment, surrendered in exchange for that Thing which is within me and all around me but writhes in my esophogas when I try to define it. It is the end and beginning of us all. The before and the after and, to an extent, the in-between. The Darkness I will never even see. The absence of air I will never breathe. It is the prospect of a forever of never-again.

            
 Motorized vehicles. Impressive instruments in our quest to forget ourselves and our place in this Wherever-We-Are. Gruesome, cancerous machinery with spilling black breath and body parts shoveled from under the sleeping Earth. Billions of them and of us, inorganic armor—testimony to the denial we have of our organs.

             
Cars Get Us Places. I would rather stay put. Rather not be plucked out of my skin by statistical fingertips when I least expect it. Rather keep my own limbs, and everyone else’s, in the order they were intended to be arranged in. I would rather not partake in this wild-eyed bargain struck with Chance and with the Love of Ourselves. Someone save me from this world run by these ‘Automobiles.’

This fear is too big for my body.

It is dark, and it hums.

Although I imagine, when the time comes

My ribs will shake, and pleading tears

Will not be my salvation

But still the fear will be a planet

My feet have only had the honor

To stand on.

And I cannot claim to own this sadness

It, perhaps, even gave birth to me

Sculpted me with something like a mother’s fingers

That will melt as I cling to them

And it will fill up my mouth when I have

Nothing to say; no breath to stutter out

A song about the unfairness of it all

No one there to listen, anyway

There never was.

That in the deepest, infuriating

And universal sense

Is Solitude.

Too big for me

I can hardly even

Choke on it

Merry Eve of the Savior Day

Fall down and worship Target and Amazon and plastics and air conditioning and malls and superstores. We made it past the myth of the apocalypse--that must mean we're invincible. Let's keep melting the ice caps and getting drunk on driving and eating when we're not hungry and killing each other and taking down rain forests and living meaningless lives.

Fall down and worship our own unwillingness to change and our sick existence.

Or just plunk down in a chair. We've become so fond of sitting.

For forty seconds

My dream of heaven was in my living room

Grinning up at the windows, eyes shut

Floating in white sunlight, filling my skull

And organs and arteries as I cracked

Open my eyelids and in came

The celestial horizon

I, sinking wonderfully through that

Anesthetic ocean, weightless in my own solid way

Nested in warm pockets of infant contentment

My God was my own suckling satisfaction

And the smiling ignorance of everything

I opened my eyes, and stepped to the side

So that I was bathed again in

The ordinary Everything

I felt stupid, but thought

That heaven was nice

For forty seconds

Song Lyrics

I feel that the stars are spectersGods who have no eyes
What use would they have for heartbeats
Sighs, or lullabies?
I don't like our echoed whispers
Let's paint the skies with lies

And see what dreams may come
Unless there are none

Stones and songbirds know some secret
Written in the clay
But we lost it--sniffed and tossed it
Stuffed ourselves with gray
Can't you see that
Death defines us
In a kind of way

Let's see what dreams may come
Unless there are none

Earth is six billion islands
Our glassy-eyed friends
Say the forever blind will never not see
But we are really just star dust
Angels of old rust
Shadows of sparks
Blinks in the blue

Earnest brain parts
Hollowed-out hearts
With howling skeletons
With space in mind
How can we find
We'd do it all again?

Let's see what dreams may come
Unless there are none

Earth is six billion islands
Our glassy-eyed friends
Say the forever blind will never not see
But we are really just star dust
Angels of old rust
Shadows of sparks
Blinks in the blue

You're Welcome

'fizz pop' and brain warts.

I am a Power House of information. My mind is a colossal database of knowledge. A phenomenal machine. An astounding computer system capable of unprecedented technological feats. People come to me for answers.

            “How are you?” they ask.

            “I am good,” I answer.

I am a Power House of information.

People will drill me with questions upon seeing me. Some questions I alone know the answer to. I alone have access into this ultra-exclusive databank known as my mind. They will ask me, “What is your name?” “How old are you?” “How do I get to Wendy’s from here?”

These are Important Questions.

I have information people desire. People desire information I possess. They desire to know the contents of my mind. “Are you hungry?” “What are you reading?” “Why are you just sitting there?” they ask.

            “How are you?” they ask.

            “I am good,” I answer.

Sometimes, I am not really good. Why I answer that I am good, when I am not really good, I do not think I have time to go into.

Sometimes, I need to eat. Other people, also, need to eat. I eat with other people. But not always. While we eat, they ask me for information.

People listen to music. They read books. They watch sports games. They watch movies. Sometimes, they want to watch, or listen, with me. They desire my opinion concerning these things. And I give it to them.

People care that I exist. Some of them enjoy being with me. Some of them really enjoy being with me. Some of them really want me to keep existing, even though they do not see me that often. And they expect me to want them to keep existing as well. Which sometimes I do.

This is why people ask me how I am.

I am good, I answer.

“I am glad that you are alive,” they say. “I want you to keep being alive, and if you were not, I would not be happy,” they say.

Sometimes, I believe them.

“I am good,” I answer. Even though they did not ask.