literature

Skin like Soap

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Literature Text

Skin Like Soap

He sat in his room naked
skin like soap, eyes like ice
humming something to himself
simple and short
again and again and again and again
preparing to create the world
With great grace
he drew a feather from his pillow
and tickled his nose

Then sneezed

He sneezed once and the present blew away
He sneezed again and wiped away the past
He sneezed once more, and there was nothing
just the future, empty, wide
cracked and blue
dry white fans where rivers once emptied out into the sea
Cold, because nothing warm remained
just the pale outline of possibility
like starving ghosts
fading rapidly after the disappearance
of everything warm, thick, soft, and real
Only he was left, his hollow white outline
a negative shadow
mimicking him, a line of blank mirrors
bending infinitely into a field of white
that blew back through the present and past
leaving a trail of what might have been snow
if snow had still existed

When everything was quiet
he began

He made himself first
tall, thick, furred
hard blue hands
black talons cracked through skin
like roots seeking water
sharper and harder than rocks
His hair was white
his eyes were black
and he could see in the dark

Strong,
strong

He made the world
It was simple and white
He reached into his reflection
took the stuff of the future
snowy and cold
and spread it across the blankness around him
It became ice, glaciers with blue beating hearts
and flat fields of frozen water as thick and stiff as concrete
The stretch of his arm and the blades in his nails
carved the horizon from the broken blankness beyond him

So there was always a place to dream
and always a place to hide

He pushed his lips
against the receding edge of the moment
single cell ever onward
and poked a hole with his powerful tongue
and sucked
and sucked
and sucked
until he had a mouthful of future
a mouth full of possibility
that melted from the heat of his mouth
and ran down the back of his throat
He made a fist and broke the ice
then pissed into the blankness beneath
until he was empty and the sea was full
clear as crystal, salty from his body
He scraped his nails across the sea
gouging out hills and troughs

Leaving waves in the wake of his hand

He looked up, but there was nothing
so he took out one eye
and unrolled the color within it
like a bolt of blue of silk
but it was too slow like this
He took one long talon
and threaded the needle through his eye
and waved it three times above his head
in great sloppy circles
trailing flags of blue silk behind him
so that everything above the horizon
was the color of his eye

And his eye was the color of the ice

He looked up and saw the sky
and saw the sky could not see
With careful teeth he took the milky eye from off the claw
and spit it into the sky
as high as breath could have
It lodged in a seam, colorless and cold
shedding light but not warmth
A shiny white coin in the sky

He pressed his lips to the moment’s edge
and sucked and sucked again
He swallowed, pushed,
rolled his eyes and shat
It came out thick and black
He took the shit in two blue hands
and smeared it across the sky
making night
The smell of it wafting down itched his nose

He sneezed again
and filled the sky with stars

He plunged his hand into the white
and pressing it between his palms
until it was a hard block
the surface the shape of his palms
the rest the shape of the space between his hands
He inhaled, showing the shape of his lungs
He exhaled, blowing his breath along the sides of ice
melting away what did not belong
With his claws he cut away excess
and added intimate detail
When he finished he kissed her
and she blinked, pink against white

She stood and shivered
and watched him walk away
I dunno about this. I feel right now like its one of my worst poems. Like a hardwood floor, maybe fun to slide over, but essentially just the placement boards. Long and lacking in real flavor, it's idealistically what I want, but still far from good.

Since the new submission process lacks third party permission I need to pimp ~ digitalcrayons in this section, since it's his artwork I'm using for my new submission face. Go give him pageviews and help cancel my ever increasing karmic debt.
© 2003 - 2024 epimetheus
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justb's avatar
this reminds me for some reason of being an animal. letting all the natural processes come and letting their meaning mix with the meaning of all things none to try to craft the other, just letting what's been done stand, I think the ending is great, and it is worth reading. Good job.