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Language:
English
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Published:
2021-05-10
Updated:
2021-05-13
Words:
632
Chapters:
2/10
Comments:
6
Kudos:
53
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10
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717

the enormity of my desire disgusts me

Summary:

you are the boy in the field. you were the boy in the field. you will always be the boy in the field, and the boy in the field is dead. so what are you?

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: in an understandable way

Chapter Text

I saw them hiding in the yellow field, crouching low
in the vanished dark. I followed them pretending
they were me because they were. I wanted to explain
myself to myself in an understandable way.

— richard siken, birds hover the trampled field

if you’re a leader you’re a leaver—how much of you is described in abstractions, how much in words out loud? how much of you is still the little boy on a farm in Lij?

how much of you is kept away in his crevices? there is the little cabinet where mother kept the coffee. the bucket which you used to shower. there is the open field where you used to run and clutch your brother’s hand. that is the same field where your brother died.

you remember a field of geraniums. if you look at them now, it’s because you want to be understandable. you want to open a door and find someone. when you open the door you see a mirror. the man there isn’t a ghost, he’s a demon. his hands are red. the man in the mirror speaks to the boy sitting in the field: do you understand?

and who could? you are not the same person—you can not explain Dirtyhands to the boy in the field. he smiled, he had dimples, he was rearranged and reordered and murdered into the man in front of you.

you are the boy in the field. you were the boy in the field. you will always be the boy in the field, and the boy in the field is dead. so what are you?

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

I gave shape to my fears and made excuses. I varied my
velocities, watched myselves sleep. Something’s not
right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it–
living in the worst parts, ruining myself.

— richard siken, birds hover the trampled field

in this city there is a Hell, and in that Hell there is a building, and in that building there is an attic, and in that attic there are two boys. one is sleeping in a bed of water and three feet under. the other is doing maths at the desk with blood underneath his fingernails.

when you were young you prayed to God. your mother lifted you out of her lap and took you to a building where she explained good and evil to you; she said do not drink, do not steal, do not murder, do not sin.

you are no longer young. you have no apologies to grant the woman who left you—neither of you. both the boy in the bed and the boy at the desk are broken. only one has sinned, the other has already suffered.

she said do not drink; you broke that promise at twelve. you were lonely and beautifully exhausted, the chill of the day settling down your bones, and you wanted to lose your mind so you did.

she said do not steal; you did not steal, did not really steal, until you were eleven. then you took from the world what it took from you without death at your behest. the child stealing food to breath into the undead did not steal. the boy who cut open the rich man’s feet did.

she said do not murder; you were ten. there was nothing more. you don’t remember the last time you cried.

she said do not sin; you died when you were nine. when you are a demon, when you have been acquitted of sins, can you still earn them?

if you are climbing out of hell, the game changes. the cards switch hands. you cannot drop further than rock bottom. you do not need to. you shove yourself deeper, vary those velocities.

perhaps you take wraiths and sharpshooters with you.

Notes:

this is stupidly self indulgent and retrospective and annoying, im sorry