Nothing Comes Out Anymore
Nothing comes out anymore, everything trapped inside for the slow pause of winter; a rabbit with his paws tied together will freeze unless heâs cut free; a small babe stranded in a snow bank up to her eyes in debt will drown unless sheâs cut free. Who has the knife? Whoâs paying for all this? A rabbit dies and no one thinks twice; a small babe cries unaware she will spend the rest of her life paying off all the debt thatâs accumulated over the years, generations of neglect cloaked in parental technique, quietly buried in the backyard. A small girl stranded with nothing but her eyes gummed over, like a baby bird trapped in its nest. When a bird dies no one thinks twice- this is how the world works.
Everything suspended from the trees, filtered through sheets of fog as the cold rolls in, dead birds in the lawn like a blanket of snow. No one thinks twice.
When nothing comes out anymore, wake yourself up in an unrecognizable forest and cut a tree in half. All of the years trapped inside are compressed into tight rings of cedar. The smell triggers an outpour, like ten thousand seeds dumped into a bed meant for spring. A second forest appears, this one looks remarkably familiar: a pink bathtub filled with children projected on the ceiling, laughter from under the couch; a rotten apple tree, bottles of vanilla cream; screams for help echoing against granite, blood all over the floor.
If too much comes out, get drunk and belligerently stumble through the woods with an axe to hack away at all you remembered to forget. Rabbits and birds die under your feet, but you wonât think twice because this is how the world works. If you hang a tree by its roots, you can erase every memory you never wanted to have. Hang the whole forest to lose all sense of self. Take a knife into the woods and carve the outline of your shadow into all the overturned trees. With no support system, branches snap in the wind, whole pine families fall with the rain. Everything is wet and covered in moss; north is lost. There is no direction here.
In an overturned forest, the wind screams in reverse and sap drips upwards. When you get hungry enough, catch the sap in thimble-sized buckets. It tastes like cum, tastes like every orgasm youâve ever had. Someone flips the switch and a thousand headlights pour in through the trees, projecting a room of shadows where all your childhood friends are drunk. Everyoneâs trying to take off their clothes and move outside of themselves. How do you step through a door that wonât open? How do you step through a door youâve locked shut? A key trapped inside isnât any good until you cut it out. An ocean of blood drowns the forest floor. Slaughtered deer hang from the tree tops; no sunlight reaches the ground. Everything collapsing in on itself, a thousand seeds all at once.Â
The darkness is warm wrapped around the trees, wrapped around time. A bird sounds in the distance. A bird dies and the wind picks up. Everyone is angry; everyone is lost. Cut off your fingertips under the last standing tree and walk in a thousand mile circle. All the blood will pool into high tide until you return and unplug the drain; this is all sport, this is all for fun. An ocean of blood drains slow through a straw until thereâs nothing left but the smell of iron. Everything is brown again. All the color is lost, all the life drained. A dog barks five towns over, someone slits his throat. All the death in the world adds up between meals, especially when no one is hungry. Itâs be hunted or be hunted; no one thinks twice. This is how the world works. Â
