the space above my ears.

Dismemberment of the Saints

This morning, over muffins, she asked me how to get into Elysium.

Her naivety was so striking that all the tea kettles in the county whistled out a warning.

I said that no one makes it to Elysium.

The beach houses and playgrounds are a mirage.

A pale imitation of happiness.

I said that you could walk around the world, spin every last bit of straw into silver, but you'll never be a hero unless you die young.

I am forty-seven minutes into explaining these morbid theorems of mine when I finally realize I'm just talking into the laundry chute.

I briefly consider climbing inside.

Maybe by some grace of the gods, I will discover the road less traveled at the bottom and find myself in Wonderland instead of in the mass graves on the other side of the fence.

It isn't fair.

Weren't we all good before the monsoon?

Before the car accidents and sunflower fields?

Before the broken arms and muddy boots?

The log cabins and parties of one?

They stand before us and preach that Death itself is the only way to kill the infection.

The only way to be made pure.

White blood.

White teeth.

White eyes.

In a fleeting moment of somber faces and black veils, we'll take what's left of the vessels and tie balloons around their necks.

We'll sit back and watch them float up to hang in the gallows of the sky.

We'll throw graduation parties and barbecues below them.

They watch us, and nothing moves but their eyes,

White eyes.

Thinking about it is like chewing nails.

Seeing it, I don't feel a thing.

I am so tired.

The rain comes down hard on the pavement.

My hair is wet, my socks soaked through.

For the very first time, I feel alive.

I still don't understand the meaning of most things.

All I know is that the drops falling and dying on the ground are a hundred sins left unconfessed.

Regrets never admitted.

Remorse never expressed.

Now and only now do I understand true erasure.

This dismembering and reassembling of the saints until the stories' morals become illegible.

No amount of sugar on top of sunshine can undo these mutations.

There is no fixing what we have done, no rewriting history.

But can we not stop the idle worship?

Can we not at least mop the floors for future generations?

Right there, that's where the paradox makes a full circle.

How can we, when innate belief is already dead?