stay still
not here
yes
just there

Tell her white, gold, red my love is—
And for her, — for her.

If I might taste but once, just once
The dew
Upon her lips

Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at ICA, London (Aug 2 - Oct 20, 1968).

I think quite possibly—that the moment I speak of, that moment of pure euphoria, since that is how I would describe it, pure momentary bliss—is a part of me dying. That I die ever so slightly, some part of my soul degrades, a grain of sand taken from a beach. And such is the source of the anxiety which plagues me. I worry the more I want—the more I experience that orgasmic second—so short that, once I realize what has occurred, it is already long over—the more I wish for moments to last forever: that beach will become tide.

I worry the emergence of that free, empty ocean of my eroded soul will not correlate to my age, and the beach will disappear before I reach the average lifespan. That my soul will entirely degrade by the time I turn, say, 40, and I will be forced to then live the latter half of my life in a malaise. Where I become incapable of enjoying anything.

Or possibly rather, and this might be the preferable option: I will kill myself when my soul reaches such a point.

I will turn 40, my last second of bliss coming as I blow out the candles on the cake my partner had purchased from a bakery near where we live. I will then die, internally, eternally, pelagic. I will sit in our kitchen, watching as my family eats the cake around me. They will talk about their days, their lives, the effect I have had on all of their decisions and outlooks, and I will feel nothing. I will have no desires except to kill myself. To prevent the body from making any change of direction for the life that my soul steered into formation.

I will go to sleep that night. Maybe my lover would try to have sex, celebratory, I will refuse. I will have to. In some way, it will be rape. Necrophilic rape. My body will not want it, it should not want it, I hope it will be aware of how wrong it would be. I pray it will not take advantage of the fact that no one will ever know—my partner believing the body is still inhabited by the person they married. Hopefully they will see the body’s vacant eyes and understand what happens next.

they stepped past glossy superstructures that jutted out from and surrounded century-old buildings, they moved with such ease. Their movements did not carry any weight and could be regarded as inconsequential. If you were to ask this person what they just did, they wouldn’t consider their steps nor their eye movements nor the thoughts they just then experienced, to be something they had done. And would rather look at you, bewildered, and storm off or ask for more clarification in their accented tones. It was because, in their mind, they hadn’t stepped anywhere. They were inside themselves actively, even as you questioned them.

Skin covers the soul.
The soul is visible at night.
Red blood.
When the bleeding fades.
The wound opens and milligrams of soul leave the body. I’m not lying.