i'd like to place a curse upon the alchemist

for mixing sweat with talcum in the cauldron

of a public bus where even the rain rains forgettably

like mall music being watched by bodies that are

neither awake nor asleep but sincerely fake.

everyone knows if you repeat a word many times

it starts to lose meaning but not as many know

it can also start to gain meaning. try it : life, death,

love, hate, family, human, my name, yours.

*

i'd like to know why this happens :

life wraps around me like a kids' blanket

that no matter how i pull it always leaves me

exposed to some chill and if i stretch it too much

it becomes the sky which not only looks like carbon paper

but is carbon paper as if similes can construct reality

as if there-is-no-outside-text is the new abracadabra.

the sky is everywhere and it's out there to carboncopy me

make infinite dispensable versions of me with each one

exposing some part to some chill making me wonder

if consciously existing and not merely materially existing

is a necessary initial condition for multiversal existence

and if that's why some part of me is always exposed

in some world to some blanketless chill.

*

dear customer, the number you're trying to reach

is currently busy, please try again later.

the number you're trying to reach, dear customer

is out of network courage, please try again later.

the number you're trying to reach does not exist

dear customer, don't bother to try again later. 

~ ajay

10/9/2022