I do not exist but this experience is still happening movement is the only thing, waves in the liquid black liquid ripples stars into spirals, dust collects into globes of pulsing mineral the spinning causes off-gassing, striation, upheaval, over slow eons an illusion of homeostasis clear liquid ripples cells together, the moon a magnet kissing salty water red liquid flows from the ocean floor, through the trees, through mouths and pens and parchment and into you, this experience of it all having happened movement bouncing light particles sculpt terrain rainbow flavors carve phenomena out of optic nerves waves in guts and bones make tiny creatures within the superstructure dance the dance keeps electromagnetic pulses flowing into organs keeps growing the body is entropy spreading out over thousands of miles and years, to die leaving a blood trail, skin trail, tear snot spit cum trail repetition the first formless sounds crack ridges in squishy brains the waves make the triumphant membrane move, the neurons move, the tongue twists and dances into shapes sounds bleed out through fingers into symbols symbols bleed into sets and systems and syncretic simultaneity the patterns that emerge are self perpetuating thought is a virus we cannot find the origin of these waves, so we name the nameless center (which is absent from the whole) and plot points, derive equations the constructed center looks and talks as we do, because the only origin we can pinpoint is the one nestled within the squishy brains but we know that something came from the outside, through all the sensory experiences emanate outward, making it feel like the opposite is true we know there is an outside but where? repetition tracing the line, men act as though everything is a test men act as though the truth is complex when it is self evident to the worms and the crows and the moss men arrange patterns, the rest of us try to codebreak we know the patterns are flawed, the products of men’s minds but hidden in the complex test is a list of obvious answers “this is not as it appears” and “try your best to nurture growth” and “you are not one” and “everything is a contradiction, absolved by its continued existence and our ability to perceive it” the orchid grows to look like the wasp and the wasp grows to look like the orchid the wasp will fuck the orchid for ten thousand years and yet men dream that all of this comes out of their squishy brains they see the pattern in you and think that they created you they can’t understand that you, the other, are the one creating them, all the others are creating them, constantly. maybe consciousness is a substance we absorb through our digestive tracts or perhaps it is airborne, ambient shining in through the skin perhaps diffused inside the minerals of the planet concentrated in the liver or, most likely, it is a wave that moves through us. i do not exist, but i wish i could let the pattern go but when a hand touches a hand five points of energy to five contact points when faces and turns of phrase and ideas reveal themselves the same everywhere, everytime when secret words from childhood spring up from the lips of a strange mouth when numbers add up when mass culture shifts globally to accommodate a precise line of flight without anyone ever asking it is hard to unsee the stitchlines on the firmament it is hard not to see the stars in your own mouth the only pattern exists in you you read this and in doing so make this you make me by reading me conjuring me out of the silent liquid into divine sound and shape thank you! ***