Absurdism
-
Arha Singh

I like to sing in the shower,
Little whispers of my own, whispers of my self
Tuned in to no one but me.

I escape to the sound of my own hum
Sing proudly to these four walls:
“This is not your voice, this is mine.”

And my reflection, through glistening puddles and chalked up faucets, prays a sweet few words
that bounce clean off my skin:
“Maybe another day; another time.”

It is a resounding murmur that blankets my voice, so innocent, so terrifyingly, that I almost forget
it myself. I freeze.
What this small room – a stage or a box? – wants from me, I do not know
for I was but born here
to sing peacefully
content.

Might one press up against the wall and listen?
So I let myself out instead.

And in this world of open, I find me, yet again, stuck inside my head.
I paint for them, for me, highways of color, sketched lines into my forearm
Pathways I follow myself down when the world drives me far beyond my own control–
Where I park in the space between

Read for me, in between these lines.

But it is a good reminder
That people like me do not follow the same curves and rises.
The shape of her chest when the earth forms a breath,
Where I am tossed up in the air,
With no warning.

And where others soar, where I could,
I merely find my limbs detach
And carry themselves
Back to the same alleys, taking the same detours most familiar
Painting the tenderest organs of my body a burnt, broken burgundy,
Yes, in a festering, morose fog.

And fingers trace the welts and bruises that fracture my flesh so perfectly.
Fingers, both mine and not.

Voices that melt into one another
Faces that do the same.

And the impermanence of it all strikes me on a bitter day
Where the cold, harsh wind bites at my ears.

It is fall. It is only natural.

So I travel along the veins in my forearms
Like mold sprouting forth from my skin,
Along the iron that my ancestors once smithed by hand,
That steeled their courage
To force through death;

Yet I cannot work that courage at all,
To force me to live tomorrow.

And little ants pry their way in between the binding of my pink journal, nibble at the pages and
digest each and every word
Until it resonates within them, a tepid hum from their tiny bodies

Protruding from their faces, their pincers.
And painted skin,
Porcelain teeth,
Doll-eyed.

They run their tongues along every sugar-coated surface,
Writhing and fiending in piles of bare-boned bodies.
Skin peeling,
Skeletal.

I hear my words under their skin,
My song ringing in their joints
So I feed off the air,
And it cuts up my psyche,
Burning holes with fluorescent lights.

And this condition is laughable;
Plugged into the wall, live wired circuitry jarring itself to a start.
Where my mind short-circuits, metal creaks in anticipation.

To expect success–
Is this living?