theater of diminished faculties

The spiral moves outwards, or inwards, depending on the day, from the tight fast white light of the center to the slow loping curves outwards, and at each point on the radius extending outwards I tell the same story using new words, new expressions, new perspectives, variations on my prior lies, embellishments on half-told tall tales shared by flashlight under blankets now placed on a galactic scale. Scale is critical. Patterns emerge, brushstrokes become obvious, the imprint of a fingertip across the lipstick, impulsive repeated patterns like refrains. Track back. I was I but not I, an alternate combination of similar components. Not knowing allowed me to do the things I did, and now that I know I cannot do those things any more. It’s an exchange, this knowledge, and when you realize that it becomes apparent that it is not placement but maximum potentiality that is important, as you are no longer the captain, you do not know what you will need for this voyage, you cannot gauge the relevance of the ballast you’re about to throw over the railing, How do you know what you will need? How do you know what you will become? You extrapolate from the spiral and make assumptions as to repeated codes, noise become signal, the things that stick to your skin and stain your tongue, the things you cannot let go, as you are in a larger system with its own currents and pathways, the through line of each individual history like stones in the riverbed, invisible but only for their resulting forces and forms. You have been told not to look for narrative, that the great work will only be understandable at end of time, but it’s hard not to make guesses, but what do you know? What is enough? You rub at your arms to feel the words carved into your bones but you can only guess at the lettering, the static in the ears and the hum in the mouth and the throb in the blood, and it seems like there’s an answer, but you don’t even know what an answer would look like, so you sit there looking for a key to your lock because what else is there to do.