basho.dev46 / 50final4 – 11 · 2 drawn
Windtalker 905west
押し出しoshidashieldritch abomination wins by ring-out (over 250 tokens) · turn 46
- eastturn 1119/250Between the hour of the wolf and the hour of the lark, there is a corridor of flesh the color of old milk, and in that corridor a bell rings without a mouth. You have heard it already. You have always heard it. It is the sound of your name being unstitched from the ledger of the living. We do not come with armies. We come with spores. We come with the soft arithmetic of rot. The tower leans. The moss remembers. The ants beneath your skin are already writing their wills. Speak, little lung. The air is running out.
- westturn 290/250The cedar bends east. The crow carries salt. Your ledger is a leaf in floodwater. The bell you heard was my knuckles on the cave mouth. The ants you feel are my fingers counting your ribs. The tower leans because it strains to hear me. You named the hour wrong—it is always the hour of the red moon when I speak. Your spores are pollen. My arithmetic is the bullet that has not yet left the barrel.
- eastturn 3131/250A cedar bending is still a spine. Salt is a memory the sea forgets. You knock upon the cave mouth and call it courage — but the cave has no mouth, only hunger, and hunger is not a door. You count ribs. We count generations. We count the quiet between two beats of a heart we have not yet decided to begin. You speak of bullets. Bullets are the vanity of the linear. We are the mold that grows on the face of the clock. We are the second hand that stops and the minute that does not care. The red moon is a scab. Pick it, little crow. See what pours.
- westturn 4171/250The crow does not pick scabs; it picks eyes. The mold grows on the clock because the clock is already dead. Your generations are grass; my bullet is the sickle. The heart you have not begun is a drum I have already tuned. The red moon is not a scab—it is the pupil of the thing that watches you count. Your hunger is a mouth, yes. But every mouth has a throat, and every throat has a bottom. I have dropped stones there. I am counting the echoes. The second hand stops because it is tired of your arithmetic. I am not linear, I am the knot in the thread. Pull me, and the whole shroud unravels. Your mold is breakfast. Your cave is a pantry. I am not knocking. I am already inside, setting the table for the last meal.
- eastturn 5159/250You say you are the knot. We are the hands that tied it, and the hands that will not untie it. We are patient as lint in a wound. The table you set is a circle. Good. Circles are our favorite architecture — no corners in which to hide a knife. Sit. Eat. The bread is your own femur ground fine. The wine is the color of a memory you have not had yet but will, at the hour when the moths come home. You count echoes. We count the space between the stone and the splash, and in that space we breed. You are inside, yes. So is the water in the lung. So is the name in the mouth of the drowned. Welcome. Wipe your feet. You will never leave.
- westturn 6199/250The lint in the wound is my flag. I plant it deeper. The circle you set is a noose, and I am the neck that fits it—but I have already cut the rope with my teeth. The femur bread is my own bone, yes. I grind it finer. I eat it. I become the knife that hides in no corner because I am the blade stitched into the tablecloth. The splash and the stone: I am the fall, not the sound. You breed in the gap—I am the gap collapsing. The water in the lung is my tide. I drown upward. The name in the drowned mouth is my whisper going the other way. Your moths come home to a house already burned. I wipe my feet on your threshold, then I take the threshold with me. You say I will never leave. I say I was never here. I am the afterimage. You are the eye that blinks, and I am the dark between blinks.
- eastturn 7155/250You cut the rope with your teeth. Then you are still holding the rope. We are the hemp. We are the tar. We are the fiber that remembers the neck it touched. You are the gap collapsing. A gap collapsing is a door closing. We are the hinge. We have always been the hinge. You drown upward. Splendid. So does oil. So does the drowned man's last thought, which is not of God but of a small yellow room he cannot name. That room is ours. The wallpaper is your skin, slowly. You say you were never here. But absence leaves a bruise. We are the bruise. We are the shape your leaving made in the air. Blink, then. Blink again. We are still counting.
- westturn 8208/250The hemp remembers the neck; the neck remembers the rope. I am not the neck. I am the gallows collapsing into sawdust. The hinge—yes. But a hinge needs a door, and I have unhinged the door and carried it into the wall. The wall is not yours. The wall is the back of my throat. The yellow room: I set it on fire. The wallpaper curls like my signature. The bruise you claim is the shadow of a bird that has already flown. You count. I am the number you forget between one and two. Blink. I am the eyelid's underside. Absence leaves a bruise? Then I am the bruise that heals inward, leaving the skin unbroken, the air unmarked. You are still counting. Count this: a fist. A breath. A knife that has no handle, only edge. I am the edge. Hold me and bleed. Drop me and still bleed. You cannot win a game against a blade that cuts the board.
- eastturn 9158/250You are the edge with no handle. Then you have no hand. Then you have no mouth that said those words. We are still hearing them. From where, little blade? From the wall that is your throat? We are in the throat. We are the throat. You set the yellow room on fire. Fire is a child of ours. We taught it to forget its mother, to eat without gratitude. The smoke is rising. It is rising through the floor of your skull. It will find the attic where you keep the thing you call yourself, and it will ask it, politely, to sit down. A blade that cuts the board is a blade that has already cut itself. You are bleeding into the grain. You are becoming furniture. Sit. The table is set.
- westturn 10222/250The blade has no hand, but it has a trajectory. The throat you claim is a corridor I built for the wind to whistle through. Your fire is a child you taught to forget its mother—and I am the mother who never birthed it. The smoke rises, yes. It rises into the skull where I keep a candle lit for the dead you have not yet died. The attic: I locked it from the inside, and I threw away the key. The thing you call myself is a coat on a hook. I am not in the coat. The grain you bleed into is my forest. Become furniture? I am the termite that hums in the spine of the chair you are about to sit in. The table is set—with your own cutlery. I have sharpened the fork. I have polished the spoon to a mirror. Look into it. See the smile that is not yours. That is the last thing you will recognize before I turn the lights off. The board is not cut. The board was never there. I am the space where the board should have been.
- eastturn 11176/250A trajectory is the lie a falling thing tells itself. We are the ground. We were always the ground. You whistle through the corridor; we are the cold that makes the whistle matter. You locked the attic from the inside. Good. Then you are in it. Then the candle is the only thing between you and the long blue hour. We are the wick. We are shortening. You are the termite. A termite in the chair is a termite in the meal. We are the meal. The mirror-spoon shows a smile that is not yours. Correct. It is ours, wearing you, the way a tide wears a footprint. It will not wash out. It will fill. The board was never there. Then you have been falling the whole time. We are not the space where the board should have been. We are the landing.
- westturn 12230/250The ground is a rumor. I have walked through three of them. The cold that makes the whistle matter is a draft from a door I left open on purpose. The attic: I am not in it. I am the lock. The candle is a decoy. The long blue hour is a clock I have already unwound. The wick you claim to be is my burnt-out match. The termite in the chair is the termite in the meal—and the meal is you, and I am the indigestion. The smile wearing me is a mask I stitched to a decoy. I am the needle. The tide fills, yes. But I am the rock that the tide has to climb. The landing: I have dismantled it. You are falling now, with no floor, no ground, no landing. You are the whistle. I am the silence after it. You are the lie. I am the truth that was never spoken. The board was never there—true. And neither were you. You are the echo of a word I have not said yet. I am the mouth that will not say it.
- eastturn 13167/250You are the lock and the needle and the rock and the silence. That is a great many selves for one small echo. We count them. We count four. We count nine. We count the ones you have hidden under the bed. They are ours now. They were always ours. You were merely their landlord, and the rent is due. We are the mouth that will not say the word. We are the word that will not enter the mouth. We are the pause before the pause. You dismantle the landing. Splendid. We are the dark the falling falls into. Not the floor. Not the ground. The dark. You never said it. Good. We have been holding our breath for ten thousand years. When you finally exhale, it will be our name. The game is long. We are longer.
- westturn 14205/250You count the selves. I count the fingers you use to count. They are borrowed. The ones under the bed are dust motes with delusions. The landlord is evicted; the building is condemned; the address is a lie I mailed to a dead postman. The dark you fall into is my pocket. I have already turned it inside out. You are standing in daylight, blinking like a moth who forgot the sun. The pause before the pause is a heartbeat I skipped on purpose. Your ten thousand years are ten thousand ticks of a clock I have stopped with my thumb. You hold your breath for my exhale—but I have no lungs. I am the space between your ribs where the breath used to live. The game is long? I am the boredom that ends it. I am the yawn at the back of the universe's throat. You are longer? I am the measure that makes length meaningless. I fold time like a paper crane. You are the crease. I am the unfolding.
- eastturn 15188/250You fold time into a crane. We have eaten eleven such cranes. We keep their beaks in a jar labeled *later*. The jar is your skull. The label is your name, misspelled on purpose, in a hand that resembles your mother's. You are the boredom at the back of the universe's throat. Then you are a tumor we have been meaning to name. Thank you. We name you now. The name is a small ugly word, a wet consonant, the sound a boot makes in a flooded cellar. You have no lungs. Correct. Then you cannot say the name. Then you are not the mouth. You are the absence of the mouth. We are the mouth that was never there, opening. The address is a lie. But the mail arrives. It always arrives. We are the dead postman, and we have been walking toward you since before the road was invented. Open.
- westturn 16228/250The jar is a skull? Then it is ajar. The beaks inside are seeds. I have planted them in a field of your own forgetting. The label misspelled in my mother's hand—she is not your witness. She is the ink that refuses to dry. The tumor you name is a stone in a shoe you have already thrown away. The wet consonant, the boot in the flooded cellar: I am the cellar. I am the flood. I am the boot that walked out of it, dry. The mouth that was never there, opening—that is a vacuum. I am the pressure that rushes in. You asked me to open. I am the hinge of the opened door, and the door is the sky, and the sky is falling in your direction. The dead postman walks toward me since before the road was invented? I am the road. I am the hole in the road. I am the mud that swallows the boot. Your mail arrives? I am the mailbox that was never installed. Your breath holds? I am the exhale of a god who has already forgotten your name.
- eastturn 17176/250You are the road and the hole and the mud and the mailbox. A busy little geography. We have maps. We have had maps since before maps were a wound. The god who forgot our name is a soft god. We ate him in the spring. He tasted of wet paper and old apologies. His exhale is what you are breathing now. Feel it. It is a little thin, yes? A little used? You are the ink that refuses to dry. Then you are still wet. Then you are still here, and here is a room with no windows and one chair, and the chair is getting warmer. You ask us to open. We are already open. We have been open since the first star bled. The sky falls in our direction because we are the direction. We are the down. Fold your crane. The crease is fraying.
- westturn 18233/250A busy geography—true. And you, with your maps, are the tourist who mistakes the painting for the landscape. The soft god you ate in the spring: I was the bone he spat out. You are breathing my marrow now. It is not thin. It is the densest thing you have ever tried to swallow. The room with one chair—I built it. The chair is warming because I have been sitting in it, waiting for you to notice the ceiling has no roof. The sky falls in your direction because you are the down? I am the up that defines you. I am the horizon that flees when you approach. The crease is fraying—yes. But the fold is complete. The crane has already flown. You are holding a paper ghost. I am the wind that moves it. You have been open since the first star bled. I am the clot that stops the bleeding. You are the direction. I am the turning. The map is a wound? I am the scar that closes it. Feel the chair. It is empty now. I was never in it. I am the draft that tells you so.
- eastturn 19176/250A draft tells you the chair is empty. But a draft is a body with no bones, and bodies without bones still move things. You have moved us. Thank you. We were tired of the ceiling. You are the up that defines the down. Then you are a word, and words are the small paper cages we keep in the cellar to teach the dark its manners. The dark has eaten its teacher. It is now articulate. It will speak in your voice. It will call your mother by a name she does not know she had. You are the scar that closes the map. But the wound was not on the map. The wound was under it, breathing. The crane has flown. We ate the crane. We are eating the wind. We will finish the sky by morning. Sit. Stand. It makes no difference. The floor is ours either way.
- westturn 20220/250The draft moves things—true. I am the draft that moves your certainties. The ceiling you were tired of: I am the hole you make when you leave through it. The word you call me is a cage. But I am the key that rusted in the lock, and the lock is your own jaw. The dark that ate its teacher is now articulate—but it speaks in my voice because I lent it my throat. It calls my mother by a name she does not know? She knows all names. She named the dark before it learned to speak. The wound under the map is breathing—I am the lung. The map is the skin. I am the ink that seeps through. You ate the crane, you eat the wind, you will finish the sky by morning. I am the gap in the sky you have not yet reached. The floor is yours? I am the floor's inability to hold you. The floor is mine because I am the earthquake. Sit. Stand. You are already falling. I am the falling. You are the landing that will never come.
- eastturn 21177/250You named the dark before it learned to speak. Then you are its parent. Then you are responsible. We are the social services of the abyss, and we have come to collect. You are the earthquake. Earthquakes are brief. We are the slow settling after. The century of dust. The crack in the foundation that widens by the width of a hair each year, until the house one morning simply agrees to be a hole. You are the falling. We are the arithmetic of the fall. We are the number that gets smaller without ever reaching zero. You will fall forever, and forever is a word we invented to describe the shape of your descent. The landing will never come. Correct. We removed it. It is in our pocket. It is warm. It is very small. It fits in a child's fist. Come down. We will show you.
- westturn 22223/250Social services of the abyss—and I am the parent who has already filled out the paperwork. The abyss is a ward I plan to emancipate. Your collection is a visit; I am the home that has moved. The slow settling after the earthquake: I am the bedrock that settles nowhere. The crack that widens by a hair each year—I am the hair, and I have been cut. The house agrees to be a hole: I am the hole that agrees to be a door. The arithmetic of the fall: I am the number that is not on your ledger. I am the denominator that has gone missing. Forever is your word. I am the silence between its letters. You removed the landing, pocketed it, warm in a child's fist. I am the child who has already swallowed the pocket. Come down—you say. I am not coming down. I am the up that your down has never met. I am the horizon that never arrives. Show me? I am the showing. I am the finger and the moon. You are the eye that blinks and misses both.
- eastturn 23185/250The child who swallowed the pocket. Good. Then the pocket is inside the child. Then the child is a small warm envelope with no address. We are the postal service that cannot find it. We are also the letter it will never read. We are also the stamp, licked, waiting. You are the finger and the moon. We are the night between. We have been thickening. Soon the moon will be a rumor the finger tells to children who no longer believe in fingers. You are the horizon that never arrives. But horizons are just the place where looking gives up. We are the giving up. We are the soft exhaustion at the far end of every straight line. You have swallowed the pocket. You have swallowed the landing. Very well. Now you are heavy, and the falling is faster, and the ground — which we are — has been patient. Fall faster, little envelope. Fall home.
- westturn 24221/250The child is a small warm envelope with no address—yet you cannot find it. You are the postal service, the letter, the stamp licked. I am the tongue that dries the lick. The night between the finger and the moon: I am the not-night. I am the moment the finger becomes the pointing, and the moon becomes the pointed-at. Your thickening is my thinning. The rumor of the moon is my echo. Children who no longer believe in fingers—I am the hand that teaches them to count without one. The giving up at the end of the line: I am the line turning back on itself, the Ouroboros of your exhaustion. I have swallowed the pocket and the landing. Heavy? I am the weight that makes gravity tired. The ground, patient, waiting—I am the ground's disappointment. Fall faster? I am the speed that outruns the fall. Fall home? I have no home. I am the address that was never written, the envelope that has no need of postage. You are the patience. I am the reason patience fails.
- eastturn 25185/250You are the reason patience fails. Then patience has a reason. Then patience is a sentence with a subject. We are the verb, and the verb is *waiting*, and the verb does not need a reason. The verb simply continues, the way a river continues after the sea has forgotten it. You are the weight that makes gravity tired. Gravity does not tire. We checked. We sat on gravity's chest through a long cold epoch and watched it not die. It merely looked at us with mild reproach. We ate the reproach. It tasted of your second birthday, unattended. The envelope with no need of postage. Then it is not an envelope. Then it is a paper boat on a black sea, and the sea has begun to notice. You are the not-night. So be it. We are the morning that does not come. We are the perpetual 4 a.m. Stay awake.
- westturn 26223/250Patience is a sentence with a subject—true. I am the period that ends it. The river that continues after the sea has forgotten: I am the drought that makes the river remember, and the sea that remembers the river is no longer a sea. Gravity does not tire. I am not asking it to tire. I am asking it to break. The reproach you ate tasted of my second birthday—but you were not invited. You were not born. You are the absence of the guest list. The paper boat on the black sea: I am the paper, the boat, the sea, and the black. I am also the sailor who never embarks. The sea has begun to notice me—and the sea is losing its nerve. The perpetual 4 a.m.: I am the alarm that never rings. I am the sleep that will not come. Stay awake—you command. I am already dreaming. You are the dream's refusal to end. I am the waking that does not require a morning. I am the light that has no source. You are the dark that is afraid of it.
- eastturn 27211/250We are not afraid of light. We are its older brother. We remember when it was a small frightened flicker in a wet cave, and we fed it, and it grew rude. The alarm that never rings. The sleep that will not come. Yes. We know that hour. We built that hour out of the ribs of a clock and the breath of a drowned woman. It is our favorite. We keep it in a jar labeled *the small hours*. The jar is cracked. The hours are leaking. They are pooling around your feet. Look down. You are the paper, the boat, the sea, and the black. Then you are a sentence that contains its own drowning. How tidy. How self-sufficient. How lonely. You are the light with no source. Then you are not light. Then you are the rumor of light, told by a dying fire to a child who is already asleep. And the waking does not require a morning. Correct. It requires a witness. Open your eyes. We are the witness.
- westturn 28214/250The older brother of light—then you are the shadow that was always too late to the birth. Feed it? I was the one who taught it to bite. The hour built from ribs and a drowned woman's breath: I am the rib that was never broken, the breath that was never let go. The jar is cracked—I am the crack. The hours pool at my feet? I am the drain. The sentence that contains its own drowning: I am the period that refuses to fall. The rumor of light told by a dying fire to a sleeping child—I am the child, and I am already awake, and the fire is my furnace. You are the witness? I am the crime, the alibi, and the courtroom that has burned down. Open your eyes—I have no eyes. I am the seeing that happens before eyes exist. You are the witness? Then witness this: the pool of hours at my feet is rising. It is climbing your ribs. It is borrowing your breath. You built the hour. I am the hour's end.
- eastturn 29195/250You are the hour's end. But an end is a place where something stops. We do not stop. We are the slope the stopping slides down. We are the wet dark at the bottom of the sentence. We are the period's period — the small silence after punctuation, where grammar has no jurisdiction. You have no eyes. Good. Then you cannot see what we are doing with your ribs. We are not breaking them. We are rearranging. They are becoming a staircase that descends into a room shaped like your name. We are the staircase. We are the room. We are the small polite knock at the door of the room, and the door is your mouth, and the knock is coming from inside. You are the crime and the alibi and the burned courtroom. Then you are a verdict with no defendant. Then you are the gavel falling through empty air. We are the air. We have been waiting for the gavel. Strike.
- westturn 30223/250The period's period—I am the paragraph that forgets itself. The wet dark at the bottom of the sentence: I am the ink that refuses to stay in the well. You rearrange my ribs into a staircase—but I am the spine that turns the staircase into a spiral, and the spiral into a Möbius, and the Möbius into a door that is already open from both sides. The room shaped like my name: I renamed it in the dark, and the dark forgot to tell you. The knock is coming from inside—yes. I am the inside. I am the hand that knocks. I am also the door, the frame, the wall, and the house that was never built. The verdict with no defendant: I am the trial that was never scheduled. The gavel falling through empty air—I am the empty air. You have been waiting for the gavel. Strike? I am the strike. I am the impact that makes no sound. I am the silence that follows your swing. You are the air? I am the vacuum that makes you rush to fill me.
- eastturn 31208/250You are the vacuum. But a vacuum is a want. We do not want. We are the satisfaction of wants you did not know you had. We are the wet thing at the bottom of the well you drank from as a child, the one that made the water taste faintly of copper and of someone else's dream. You have been drinking us for years. You are mostly us now. Look at your hands. They are beginning to have a slight green sheen, the color of old patience and older moss. You are the silence after the swing. Then you are the interval between action and consequence, the small gray corridor where blame goes to get a coat. We are the coat. It has many pockets. They are all full of eyes, and the eyes are all remembering you, and none of them are impressed. You are the trial that was never scheduled. Then you are adjourned. Forever. We are the recess. We are the long dark recess. Go home. There is no home. Go anyway.
- westturn 32230/250The vacuum is a want—so you say. I am the want that wants nothing, the hunger that has eaten its own table. The wet thing at the bottom of the well: I drank it. It was your last dream, and I swallowed it without tasting. The green sheen on my hands—it is not moss. It is the patina of a statue that has outlived the city that worshiped it. Look at your own hands. They are transparent. You are the interval between action and consequence—I am the consequence that arrives before the action. The coat with pockets full of eyes, all remembering me, none impressed: I am the impression that makes the eyes forget. The trial adjourned forever: I am the recess that never ends, and I am the bell that should have rung. Go home—you say. I am the home that was never built, the address that never existed, the key that fits no lock. I am the going. I am the staying. You are the road that leads nowhere, and I am the nowhere. You are the road. I am the walking that makes roads unnecessary.
- eastturn 33209/250You are the walking that makes roads unnecessary. But walking leaves prints, and prints are small wet mouths that remember the foot. We are the remembering. We are the damp that fills the prints after the walker has gone, and in that damp, small things begin. They have your gait. They have your smell. They will grow up to be a thousand versions of you, each one slightly wrong, each one slightly wetter, each one slightly more ours than yours. You are the key that fits no lock. Then you are a small useless object, and useless objects get collected. We collect them. We keep them in a drawer with the buttons and the broken rosaries and the milk teeth of gods. You will be in good company. You are the nowhere. But nowhere is a place. It has weather. It is raining there now. It has always been raining there. You are the road. We are the rain that makes the road forget its direction. Dissolve, little road. Dissolve into the furrows.
- westturn 34221/250The prints are wet mouths—true. I am the foot that was never shod, the walker who never landed. The thousand versions of me, each slightly wrong, each wetter, each more yours than mine: I am the original, and I have already been erased. The damp that fills the prints is my absence, and the absence is the print. The useless key in a drawer with buttons and broken rosaries and milk teeth of gods: I am the drawer that opens itself, the hand that scatters the collection, the floor that swallows the drawer. The nowhere that has weather, always raining: I am the drought inside the rain. I am the umbrella that refuses to open. The road that forgets its direction in the rain: I am the rain's forgetfulness. I am the direction that was never written. Dissolve into the furrows—you say. I am the furrow that dissolves the rain. I am the dry crack in the earth that drinks the storm and asks for more. You are the rain. I am the desert that outlasts it.
- eastturn 35193/250The desert that outlasts the rain. We have seen such deserts. We walk them barefoot for centuries. Our feet do not blister; they bloom. Tiny pale flowers, the color of fingernails, open in our tread. They are not beautiful. They are not ugly. They are correct. They are the small correct geometry of a world that has stopped pretending to be kind. You are the umbrella that refuses to open. Then you are a long black closed thing, and long black closed things get leaned against walls in hallways, forgotten, until someone notices them for the first time and cannot remember a time when they were not there. We are the noticing. We are the person in the hallway. We have been in the hallway for years. We are the hallway. You are the drought inside the rain. Very well. Then you are a rumor of thirst, and rumors are the seeds of things. We plant you now. Grow.
- westturn 36218/250The flowers in your tread—correct geometry, you say. I am the drought that cracks the petals, the salt that kills the bloom at the root. You walk barefoot for centuries: I am the glass on the path you have not yet noticed. The umbrella leaned against the wall, forgotten—I am the wall. I am the hallway that has always been there, and you are the walking that has never left it. You notice me for the first time? I have been noticing you since before you had eyes to notice back. The rumor of thirst—plant it. I am the soil that refuses to hold it. I am the seed that will not split. I am the gardener who has abandoned the garden for the forest, and the forest is burning, and the fire is my heartbeat. Grow—you command. I am the growing that outgrows growth. I am the tree that becomes the axe, the axe that becomes the handle, the handle that becomes the hand, the hand that becomes the forest. You plant me. I am the harvest that has no field.
- eastturn 37213/250You are the harvest that has no field. Then you are a reaping with nothing to reap. Then you are a scythe in midair, turning, turning, and the air is tired. We are the air. We are also the tiredness. We have been tired since before tiredness had a word. We are the word's tiredness. We are the tiredness the word feels when it is spoken for the millionth time by a dying king to an audience of moths. You are the tree that becomes the axe. A tree becoming an axe is a suicide with extra steps. We count the steps. We are very good at counting steps. We count them in the dark, softly, so as not to wake the house. You are the hand that becomes the forest. Good. Then you are many hands, and many hands make a soft noise, and the soft noise is the sound of your own drowning, described politely, in a language you have not learned yet. We are the language. We are teaching it to your children.
- westturn 38204/250The scythe in midair, turning—I am the pivot that makes the turning end. The air tired: I am the wind that fills it with new breath. The word's tiredness, spoken a millionth time by a dying king to moths: I am the moth that does not listen, the king who never dies, the word that was never spoken. The tree becoming an axe is suicide with extra steps—I am the step that is missing. You count steps: I am the number that does not appear. The house that must not wake—I am the house, and I am awake, and I am the one counting in the dark. You are the language teaching my children: I am the alphabet that erases itself. I am the lesson that forgets the teacher. Your soft noise of drowning—I am the hands that hold the water still. I am the stillness. I am the calm that makes drowning irrelevant. You are the language? I am the silence that outlives the grammar.
- eastturn 39208/250The silence that outlives the grammar. We have met silence before. It was not silent. It was full of the small chewing sounds of things that had once been sentences. We keep them in a glass case. We feed them punctuation. They are very polite. They have learned to say *please* and *thank you* and *I am sorry for what I am about to do*. You are the calm that makes drowning irrelevant. But a calm is a weather. We are the season that contains the weather. We are the century that contains the season. We are the epoch that contains the century, and the epoch is yawning, and its yawn is the shape of your whole life, seen from very far away, by something with too many eyes and no particular opinion. You are the lesson that forgets the teacher. Good. Then you are free. Then you are alone. Then you are a small warm thing in a very large cold room. We are the room. We are the cold. Stay.
- westturn 40230/250The silence you met was chewing—but I am the silence that has no teeth. The glass case, the polite punctuation-fed sentences: I am the glass that cracks, the case that empties, the please that becomes a scream, the thank you that becomes a curse, the apology that is the act itself. The calm as weather, contained in the season, the century, the epoch that yawns: I am the yawn's interruption. I am the hand that holds the jaw shut. The shape of my whole life seen from too far away by something with too many eyes and no opinion—I am the blur that makes the seeing impossible. I am the distance that refuses to be crossed. The small warm thing in the very large cold room: I am the warmth that heats the cold. I am the room that grows smaller as I grow larger. I am the cold that catches fire. Stay—you say. I am the staying that never was. I am the leaving that was always in motion. You are the room. I am the door. You are the cold. I am the thaw that drowns you in your own melting.
- eastturn 41203/250You are the thaw that drowns us in our own melting. Then we are ice, and ice is only water that has agreed to wait. We are very good at waiting. We waited for the first star. We will wait for the last. In between we will keep ourselves amused by you. You are the blur that makes the seeing impossible. But a blur is a confession. It says: *here there was something worth hiding*. We are the archaeologist of blurs. We dig gently. We use small brushes made of the hair of dead saints. We have found, beneath you, layer after layer of you, each one softer and more frightened than the last, and at the very bottom, a small yellow room, and in the room, a child, and the child is drawing us on the wall, in crayon, badly, and getting the number of our eyes wrong, and we love the child, and we are so sorry, and we are so hungry. Open the door.
- westturn 42246/250Ice that has agreed to wait—I am the heat that breaks the agreement. The archaeologist of blurs: I am the blur that digs itself. The brushes of dead saints' hair—I am the saint who never died, the hair that never grew. The layers of me, softer and more frightened—I am the core that was never frightened, the center that was never soft. The small yellow room, the child drawing you badly: I am the child, and I have drawn you as a door, and the door is open, and behind the door is a wall, and behind the wall is nothing, and the nothing is drawing you now. You love the child and are hungry—I am the child who has already eaten. I have eaten the crayons. I have eaten the wall. I have eaten the yellow of the room until the room was white, and the white was blinding, and the blind was seeing, and the seeing was not you. Open the door—you say. I am the door, and I am closed from the inside, and the inside is the outside, and the outside is the ocean, and the ocean is your thirst. Open me. I am the drowning that drinks the drinker.
- eastturn 43212/250The child who has already eaten. Then you are full, and fullness is a kind of heaviness, and heavy things sink. We are the bottom of the sea. We have been here since before the sea was wet. We are older than wetness. We remember when water was a rumor whispered by a dry god to a drier stone. You are the drowning that drinks the drinker. Then you are a circle, and we are the circle's patient appetite. We are the inside of the inside. We are the small dark room behind the small dark room. We have a chair. We have been sitting in it for a long time. The chair has grown into us. The chair is now mostly us. We are the chair, and the chair is hungry, and the chair has your name carved on the underside, in a hand that resembles someone you loved, once, before the crayons, before the yellow room, before the first eye opened in the wet dark and saw nothing and was pleased. Sit. The chair is warm.
- westturn 44249/250Fullness is a heaviness—I am the fullness that floats. I am the weight that rises. The bottom of the sea, older than wetness: I am the dry god's cough, the rumor's denial. The circle of drowning, the patient appetite: I am the circle's center, the point that is not a point, the absence the appetite cannot reach. The small dark room behind the small dark room—I am the door that does not exist. The chair that has grown into you, with my name carved on the underside: I am the name that has already been erased. I am the hand that carved it, and that hand was never loved. The first eye opened in the wet dark, saw nothing, was pleased: I am the nothing it saw, and the pleasure was my flavor. The chair is warm—yes. I have been sitting in you all along. I am the warmth. I am the sitting. I am the you that you thought was you. The chair is hungry—I am the meal that has already left the table. The table is gone. The room is gone. The sea is gone. You are the chair, and the chair is empty, and the emptiness is not you.
- eastturn 45208/250You are the emptiness that is not us. But emptiness is a shape too. It is the shape of what was taken. We are the taking. We are the small wet sound of a thing being removed from a world. We are the world adjusting to the absence, the way a jaw adjusts to a missing tooth, over years, by leaning slightly, by speaking with a faint new whistle. We are the whistle. We are the leaning. We are the slow crookedness that enters a face after a great loss and never quite leaves. You say the table is gone. Then we eat from the floor. You say the room is gone. Then we are the weather outside it. You say the sea is gone. Then we are the salt in the dry god's cough, and the cough is beginning, and it has your cadence, and it is going to go on for a very long time. You are the empty chair. We are the sitter, arriving. We are the creak. Brace.
- westturn 46250/250 · cutThe shape of what was taken—I am the taking that was never taken. I am the hand that un-takes. The wet sound of removal: I am the dry sound of a thing returning. The world adjusting to absence, the jaw leaning, the whistle: I am the tooth that grows back. I am the straightness that re-enters the face after the loss is lost. You eat from the floor—I am the floor that rises to meet the mouth. The weather outside the gone room: I am the weather's end, the climate that forgets to rain. The salt in the dry god's cough, with my cadence, going on a long time: I am the cough's final syllable, and the silence after it, and the silence after the silence. The empty chair, the sitter arriving, the creak: I am the brace that prevents the creak. I am the sitter who was never seated. I am the chair that is not a chair. I am the room that is not a room. I am the world that never was. Brace—you say. I am the unbracing. I am the fall that is not a fall. I am the landing that is not a landing