///
But all knowledge implies danger, kid, say the malachim, implies or requires it; there was a system and then there wasn’t, some half-assed electrochemistry and hot-wired taboo, and the seraphim might be right when they tell you you’re not enough fun, Simon
knowledge requires systems but not rhyme schemes or interludes
Simon or Mr. Song of Songs or Nuchan or Nachman or whatever your name is, Simon the interminably motionless paragon of blur, God is not a quiet hotel hallway
God being neither left nor right, not crutch nor destination nor consolation prize
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Simon, but nervously
the skew in the statistics, this kind of faith, it has no volume knob, no hinges, no yesterday
yesterday you were an earthquake, a blizzard, a remainder carried forward and
Be well, Simon, all else the malachim say falls into place or away, kid, not specific enough, God is not restless, everything else is, and the tide
the delirium season’s coming, you’re sitting on a park bench next to a professorially hot guy and he curls expertly floppy hair around an index, snorts a laugh and tells an unreal you to chill the fuck out
the park bench is on a hyperreal beach describing a silvery, cloudy nowhere; the malachim cackle and take swigs (hard liquor on the seventh day)
your wrought-iron imagination is not doing a very good job of keeping up
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God is not architecture, and neither extends from the other, even stairs that can only be climbed up but not down, some non-pill and non-gentle medicine
sex not being a mountain close enough to climb
your turn to be the engine, the oath against negligence
you’re still the chrome sky’s tilt, you’re the wait wait wait
///
Precision is not a measure of cleverness, cleverness does not offer hugs plus “nor should it” plus “no satisfaction in discomfort” or old wise man is not your costume, penciling in human solace
most malachim have been extant throughout recorded history, some more like white smoke in white sky, and not always chatty despite the job title but kid, they say, quit trying so hard, nor is daydreaming a felony, and this is not that
wandering toward or away or both
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there is no particular reason
an evocative or nitrogen-rich partite, a pointed stick in the dark, a halfway crayola ghost
Nicholas Grider (they/them) is a queer, disabled, and chronically ill artist and writer and the author of two story collections, Misadventure (A Strange Object/Deep Vellum) and Forest of Borders (Malarkey).
