The story of °

Dispatch
04-08-02024

I wanted to write this one like an animist. I wanted to create a story with infinite main characters — my catalytic converter’s kidnapping story and the plight of the flickering ‘𝙂’ on the 𝙂𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 store sign in the strip mall off of 16th ave. and the tale of the tattoo on the arm of the man that just passed by my table.

It says . . .

𝟯𝟲°

. . . and — in my story — its ° is unrequitedly in love with the tiny expanse of skin it encircles. ° has learned to love the ache of a lifelong 𝒶𝓁𝓂𝑜𝓈𝓉.

It's probably a Placebo song reference, you know . . .

♫𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙨, 𝙄'𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙮-𝙨𝙞𝙭 𝙙𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙨♫

It all gets very overwhelming very fast when I go animist-mode like this. It's a habit with no limits. The stories go down and down into every atom, and I’m gripped by an ░i░n░f░i░n░i░t░u░m░ ░p░a░r░a░l░y░s░i░s░

I have to take deep breaths.

Box breaths.

A breathing technique I learned in a 𝐊𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐒𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫 via ＺＯＯＭ™ in 2021. I was desperate, but only enough for the mental health solutions that had full insurance coverage. Back then, most of my anxiety attacks were triggered by the oceanic experienced of my financial debt.

４░ｓｅｃｏｎｄｓ░ｉｎ

４░ｓｅｃｏｎｄｓ░ｈｏｌｄ

４░ｓｅｃｏｎｄｓ░ｏｕｔ

４░ｓｅｃｏｎｄｓ░ｈｏｌｄ

. . . as many rounds as I need, but at least 3.

Usually around 7.

Occasionally 10.

Today?

6.

Anxiety disorders are the I.B.S of the psyche. A non-diagnosis. Your guts and brains are chaos, there is no reason for their seasons, but here is an acronym you can whip out when you want to leave the party early, or trash a bathroom.

Why not sub ‘brain’ for ‘bowels’? Make I.B.S a dual use acronym? Better still, combine the two organs into one. The brain-gut connection is all the rage right now — an arc of crap-logic fired straight over this troublesome heart of mine

“For me, animism is impossible”

. . . I remind myself. I can only extend my experience of personhood into things, color them with my human confines. Try as I may, I can’t seem to make it out of my own skin. I can not leave, so I’ve flung the doors and windows wide open and let it all blow in. Everything is welcome over the threshold of the only story, my story.

I know it’s the same with everyone. I’m the center and so are you, and the Earth is an Earth sized rest house for 9 billion megalomaniacs.

What does this wood table think of all this animism business, or better sill, what are the opinions of the tree this table once was? Is this table that tree’s corpse? Was the tree the corpse of the sunlight it absorbed?

We are all made of stars, and would it be too sentimental . . .

˜”*°• ★ ᔕᑭᗩᖇKᒪE?

. . . to say those stars never died?

Outside of the human species, becoming seems like the main mode of conversation. The sun becomes a tree in order to know it. The mushroom is winning a debate with a log, while a field mouse is having a hard convo about boundaries with a red tailed hawk. Maybe we stopped becoming the moment we invented language, creating words to keep from having to penetrate each other. Without language, what tools of knowing are left but sex?

So birds tweet, dolphins squeak, dogs howl, and lovers ask each other . . .

“𝓓𝓸 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓶𝓮?”

. . . in one-hundred thousand ways.

Would the last person on Earth be the most perfect, the most loved? How could they not be with no one left to deny it. The love I desire might come from living as the last one of me — doomed to extinction — and treating everyone else the same . . . first-in-category. Then forgetting the names all together, and falling forward into it like ball pit.

Who sits in a ball pit naming all the balls?

But I see the value in writing that way. In naming and stringing names together, determining – through 𝖇𝖗𝖚𝖙𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖈𝖊 – what codex their chaos cracks. I treat each lunatic claim as truth for the duration of the pen stroke. I scrawl with a hand moving too fast for my mind to keep pace. It feels good. I stop when I get too clever, endeavoring to be more than my own moment.

Then, later, I edit for hours.