ORACLE

On this / The last morning I’d wake up / With my original body / I put on all my plastic jewellery / I stood by the window / I ate a banana covered in peanut butter / I bled through two pairs of underwear and into my jeans / I texted six people / Begging each of them to fuck me / While I still had / This body / When I started to move / I passed many filthy / Children alone / I received no texts back / I was racing through the Town / I was trying to incite / I was trying to provoke / The same way I repeat / Over and over / The actions that make me sick / That night / The night in question / I biked past the seething purple water / I arrived at the botanical garden / Just as the nightwalkers left / Just as the sprinklers turned on / Long after the plants / Had lowered their faces / And closed their eyes / One man followed me / I thought: / He is lonely / Two men followed me / I thought: / Pure coincidence / One man spoke / He said / Why are you moving / At such / A leisurely / Pace / It is too late / For such leisure / And you / Are too / Alone

I have dug down into myself and found / Nothing / I have lurched my way across this Town to the water and found / Nothing / I stopped eating / I stopped drinking / I wore a steel breastplate / How quickly I became intolerable / Even to myself / I was not permitted to have / The remains of the fetus / Scraped out of me / I was told to pass it / Naturally / I will leave this old body behind / I will reach the Oracle / I won’t ask for prophecy / I will ask to perform an exchange / My old body for a new body / A new body pore-less / Impermeable / Unetched / Unbranded / By even / The mark of its maker / I cannot wait to die / Yes I know this will be / No real death / From miles away still / The Oracle says / Keep moving / You have seen my face / Before / It has made as little impression on you / As the face of the woman who makes your coffee / The face of the woman you pay for magazines / The face of the deaf woman / Who roams the library / Asking you to buy / Her homemade greeting cards

Don’t be afraid don’t be afraid don’t be afraid. There there there there there. This is it.

I am panting / I am climbing / The mountain on the outskirts of Town / The Oracle will be found at its summit / My mouth is full of my own dust / Lines from my own poems / Rise unbidden in my mind / Humiliating me / Making me laugh too / Neon roadside flowers / Tiny stars of chamomile / Moving faster now / Rocks in my sandals / Dirt on my contact lenses / Circled by deer flies / Thus far unbitten / The hate I harbour / In my limbs / My organs / The hate I harbour / In my eyes / My mouth / The hope of women / Is murder / One man is following me / Could be coincidence / Two men are following me / Oink Oink / They say / Wind coming over / Rain coming down / Day of radiance / Beep Beep! / Says a tourist in a white duck hat / Moving past me / I recall / The food processor at my restaurant job / Feeding peeled carrots into it / Whole / And finally / When I pass a woman vomiting on the trail / I do not wait for the other pilgrims / To recognize her as the Oracle / And plant a thicket of crutches around her / I pause and cup her bald and tattooed skull / I brush the pollen from her shoulders / I pick a caterpillar off her neck / I scatter the coins of my eyes at her feet