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The Legacy of Mr. P

The exquisite indifference of starlight has more than once ended exhausted arguments waged between myself and the ghosts of relentless need;

the truth of the stars' position find its elegance in that they are not the adamant breasts of my mother where such disputes were once arbitrated.

The universe is so damn beautiful when it is not all so damn personal.

I have a stake in the brutal dependency I have for the steak speared by my ruthless fork:

This is the subjective cosmos of mother love: All need, and grief, and terror.

When I was three, I was led by parents though Terminus Station in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As we walked, I gazed upon the polished floor-- dazzled-- lost in a wilderness of glinting mica. But as we ascended the steps towards the lobby of the train station, I beheld the eternal predator: A five foot tall statue of Mr. Peanut. It seem some alien-insect god, this legume-shaped, spindly-armed, top-hat and monocle-bedecked shill for salted nuts seemed to me the emissary of a predatory race. The sight of this looming, plastic statue overwhelmed me with primal terror. I found myself thrust into the ancient landscape of instinctual intelligence. A larger order had been revealed. I had no doubt of its tangible danger: Like the sudden appearance of the shadow of swooping hawk glimpsed by a field mouse.

Everyday since has played out this way for me.

This has been my church and my dinner bowl-- This is the closest I can come to the ancient belief in the unbearable beauty of god.

Yet I am inconsolable when I witness how predatory time has descended upon the young girls I once loved.

Mr. Peanut's hand can be seen in this.

The song of glinting mica attempts to bring me solace:
It sings: It is not personal.
It sings: These women are as indifferent to your torment as are the midnight stars. Light-years pass between your heart beats.
It sings on. While galaxies spiral and I close the dusty photo album and brush the cosmology of conviction from my eyes.

The need is gone.
Our memories are the traveling light of dead stars.

This argument: Only the version of ghosts.

I might as well attempt to gain substance by eating the memory of soup.
I might as well attempt to twirl galaxies around my fork like pasta noodles.

I must never again shout your name in the gathering twilight.

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