,... $$$$ $$$$T""P$$$ba, ,gd&P""T&bg. ,gd&P""T&bg. ggggggggggg $$$$ $$$$$b d$$$$ $$$$b d$$$$ $$$$$b ggggggggggg """"""""""" $$$$ $$$$$$ $$$$$ $$$$$ $$$$$bxxP&$$&P """"""""""" $$$$ $$$$$$ T$$$$ $$$$P T$$$$ $$$"""""" " """" $$$$$$ "T&$bxxd$&P" "T&$bxx$$$$$' " """"""$$$ """ """""" """ ggg "Activated Charcoal" ggg $$$ by -> Tocoblock $$$ $$$ $$$ $$$ (* HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #916 -- 11/30/99 *) .,$$$ `"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""' My raw earth cannot be lost. Even young I knew that chance sometimes has its way with you, that the truest and most real may evaporate, might disintegrate, might appear never to have been there at all. But I witnessed raw earth, living infinite possibility, I nearly touched it, and when it faded I never thought to follow it. I was sure it would return, Arthur-like, when most needed. Where once there was certainty at least, at least there is still hope, so I have not yet lost everything. All the sad night, under-lit slick streets where nothing, nothing can ever be completely clean have not convinced me otherwise, although I have often been stranded on these very streets screaming inwardly for the smallest glimmer of anything worthwhile, some reason to live or die, wondering if I, too, was finally fading to Avalon and if Avalon might secretly be hell. On these streets I had cliche death-thoughts and thought, "Why bother?" as I thought why bother about anything and found no answer and so pressed on wishing there could be a difference between what I saw when I closed my eyes and what I saw when they were open and thought, "This is death of imagination." and thought this, finally, is balance, outward, inward, and wished, dimly, that it could at least be horrifying but it was not but was just nothing, nothing at all. Now I knew joyless passion, the miserable non-misery of endless, uncontrollable mundane repetition and I thought, "Sex also becomes this, eventually." And so it had. Even Prometheus probably felt nothing before long, who waited for pain then felt pain, waited for pain then felt pain, until it was all the same and was neither pain nor waiting. The black spots on reality that came just before the stomach pump were only windows to the slick streets and were also meaningless death, and I tried to sleep, to embrace them as I had embraced them before the overdose, slowly taking pills one at a time for two hours, but the doctor kept me awake so I could actually drink these streets as prescription, as activated charcoal, and live to see them again in reality and be stranded there again, where there are too few street lamps and no reason to move and so you just move anyway. I would later spit this stuff out, but it has a way of staying with you, of commanding revulsion at the thought of eternal existence. This was the cold night; these were the throes of soul dying, which is not a painful death but is slow. In this light I told myself a joke and shrieked, because in this light humor was bitter punishment, reminding me not to attempt movement and to abhor meaning. I remember being visited in a prison by Christ. I mean quite literally that I was locked in a filthy cell, hungry, did not know if I was to be released because I was there for no reason. At once I knew that I was not alone and I was at peace. I knew I had to learn the Lord's Prayer and I knew whom I had to learn it from. The person who taught me later became insane, kept stable on a steady diet of psychotropic pills, and now I know the Lord's Prayer and I remember that for a brief moment I was at peace. I remember that I was at peace; I cannot remember what peace felt like, but I know it didn't feel at all like balance. The sun eventually came up. It grew warmer and I could see, but the streets are still there, superimposed on everything that should have meaning, that should be beautiful but isn't. The activated charcoal has a way of staying with you. Sometimes I wish I had not drunk the pure street the doctor gave me but had slept instead. If the spots had finally come to rule my field of vision, maybe I would have been allowed a more pure hell, unsullied by the illusion of possible escape or the memory of raw earth. If god would only abandon me entirely, rare glimpses of beauty might not create such an ache, such briar guarded denial, and then there would be no need to wander, vaguely hoping to encounter some accidental redemption. I read once that a certain tropical island is home to a species of turtle that crawls from the sea to the strand once in its life to lay eggs. When finished, it is turned onto its back by wild dogs and devoured alive. For this it is born. If this is life, when do the dogs come that it might finally be ended? Or better, when will I finally discover my dog nature and turn to devouring? [--------------------------------------------------------------------------] [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #916 - WRITTEN BY TOCOBLOCK - 11/30/99 ]