The Metropolis; Crucified

I.

I liked to wonder what it would be like to watch the dissonance fade. If after a long apparatus, the version of the metropolis I abhorred would not be enough. That suddenly, through the porous walls, the remains filtered out the subdued masses. 

But you would pull free the webbed feet of the children spilled like runny noses on the pavement. And implant their corneas in your breasts. I would’ve been halfway there, dropping memories like pennies; metallic and smooth between their teeth.  

Don’t tell me— 

I don’t care how many pennies you’ve swallowed and been barren for. How many drift in the long sinews of your womb. I don’t even care what kind of cancer it might bring you. This is a problem for another version of you and I. 

I am burning the war; the whole golden baby is held up by the flesh of my mouth. The ash tries to band around it with such ardour, like ants around the discharge secreting from my lip. Yet it flickers away, like butterflies—

Nietzsche signed his last letters “The Crucified” 

Butterflies, chained to the carnal lust of

Other things. 

II. 

When I saw someone emaciated for the first time, I felt flesh melting like candle wax, hanging from my bones. Nothing is always blue.  Not in the way that bruises are or skin wrung dry is always a deep Norwegian blue. 

Nana is always blue. As if his blood is neutralizing. 

But the war might be better. It might be better to not have to watch the old get sick and wither away. It might be better for everyone if there are some discrepancies. 

If some of us learned to miss what we thought would always be around.  

The first thing I did was kiss your hair; I tried to feel each strand like veins pressing avenues into my lips. You distract me— I’m afraid I cannot afford the pleasure you embark on. I try to tell you

But it’s prophetic, like the ash faltering, like deciding to fall away. 

And I knew before I knew that the night would always follow, that the day was long. 

I knew I’d have to live it away. When REBEKKAH died, I watched her body waning

I watched her hollow like a split can onto the asphalt. I felt passion so unworn that

I lathered my belly with New York’s speckled tongue, rising over the horizon. 

And now my torso is sheltered by the same cement REBEKKAH had to be scraped clean from. 

Crucified. 

Peter, just a Norway Rat. 

III. 

I watched the seconds lean into one another. I watched the sound fade. I thought of you where I promised I would. 

Little bird, did you watch the war? Did it burn? What does it look like from where you are, from your gilded eyes? Nothing I did was a prolific shout into a void—

Even as I watched the skin bend over the scab, I still waited. 

War works when it is millions of blistering lights, when it is DECO. When it masturbates from history books and ejaculates a perilous black ink. 

War works when she is a woman— when she is pressed together by the bodies of all those she fucked into oblivion. I watched her die. Watched her womb fall from between her legs— the whole thing, stretched and gooey from birth. I watched it leak from her, I watched her limbs disconnect. 

The girls are held together by their bones. But they are not one. 

Would I have known? 

They made Peter into a saint. 

Named a painting after him, 

Whatever that means.