/// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// /// ///
the last messiah nearly destroyed me. at the breaking, i went at low-tide. in earnest, like a child, to entreat the unfurling horizon: unspool before me. each thread terrible, fascinating, terminal.
what do you seek? what do you seek? what do you seek?
that was not so long ago. a girl is a thing unnamed, unmoored, and therefore without hinge. perhaps there is succor to be sought elsewhere or within. but the mind, once obsessed, crafty as mist. i drown her voice in wheels of amber dealt by the glass.
do you think of me? do you think of me? do you think of me?
the voluptuous dusk cloaks my descent. the sea is a mouth. the moon is a body. i chase the dead and the dying, looking for devastation in the bewitching of it. to chart a course for ruination, to steer myself down, and down again.
where are you? where are you? where are you?
at last, i never saw you again. suspended at the threshold, i refuse myself the pleasure of goodbye. there is a knife-like perfection to you. your silhouette devastates. to blot you out, lash by lash, i hover before a feast of sorrows.
is this the end? is the end? is the end?
it was your left arm, disembodied, at rest. so still it could have been sculpted by gods man-made. lines and rivers so perfect, i’d kill to die a cartographer’s death. i’d wander the ruins looking for fragments of you in the dust of civilization.
what is your name? what is your name? what is your name?
the dream is dead. i wake upon a shore, screaming for Odysseus. shipwrecked and amnesia stricken, rage and desolation ignite like phantom limbs. i am driftwood, kelp, and water. the sea has made me an outcast.
do you trust me? do you trust me? do you trust me?
the rocks are barren. my feet coat the stones in feathery petroglyphs. they flicker into existence only to die before my eyes. they are ghosts slipping the veil at dawn-rise. i shiver and i bleed and i wonder.
am i the riverman? am i the ferryman? am i the reaper?
fish-bones are memories lodged in the back of my throat. at each petroglyph’s making, they sink deeper until they find blood and float. i am no more. and there, before me, is the grove.
Isle of the Dead || Peter Wessel Zapffe || 1141 AZ USA 11.08.25