Night Report: Second Sun Saturn

I've been so busy becoming that I don't know how to be. No one teaches a gun how to disassemble itself.

In the morning my father reached out and asked how I’m doing. I stared at the notification for the entire day. Distantly I remember the summers of youth when I would have traded a mountain of gold for a message from him like this. I could have convinced myself it meant I was loved. Now I know truth. I wonder, what is going wrong that he can’t tell me about? I know but I don’t. When I finally send back a long response, all I get back is: “Good”. And when I ask how he’s doing, what’s on his mind, what he’s feeling, he only says: “Fine.” I can’t be mad at him. No one teaches a gun how to disassemble itself. Minutes passed of strain; a second text: “Spending too much lately.” I know it and I don’t. I am the only one he knows to reach for relief, or guidance. He never knew or trusted his father; that’s what he made me for. For a chance for us both to try again. Becoming who we already should have been. Giving each other life and ideas on how to live it. Though I still have none to give. Did he fall asleep disappointed in me, I wondered last night while I danced, trying not think of him, trying and failing; did it happen again, after all these years? Don’t we all want to be / someone else?

Please excuse the mess while I pull out my heart and show it still beating. I’m so dedicated to becoming that I don’t know how to be. We were always moving, the years he was home were eclipsed by the looming uncertainty of when he would go away again. I’m still ruled by that not-knowing, that restlessness. I don’t want peace unless it comes precarious. No one surprises me because I’ve already practiced losing you. That’s why I say thank you every chance I get. That’s why I came to tears every time you tell me how much I mean to you. Once, I would look in the mirror and see nothing reflected back.

Now I look up at night and see Saturn far off, a second sun as S. said, and I feel ruled by it as flowers reach up to the light. As I pregame in a secret bar behind an art gallery the day after my father and I “spoke”, the image of Saturn devouring his son torments me. We are what we eat and we eat what we kill. A kind of becoming like an ouroborocism: I devour you then I am you. But I would not be me without the sacrifice of you. A father becoming his son, the son being his father and more. Or less? Is it madness or lust or instinct that drives us ever forward, again and again? At this age my father was already a father, already shaved his head, already of a substantial weight, had already moved out of the hood. Do I get a destiny separate from who I’ve consumed? Twice this week I’ve dreamt of removing my gold grill and pulling all my front teeth out with it. Everyone points and laughs as bloody nerves spool out of my gums in ropes. When I drink myself to sleep sometimes it’s not just to escape the ordeal of being.

The oysters — raw with no lemon, no interfering flavored sauce — can only distract me. The dancing, the loving, all my favored ways of looking away. At night I pray to God to keep a hidden hand on my neck. To keep me from turning away. I have it again, a heart. Now that so many are listening, I lay awake smoking and wonder: What do I have to say? And what do I do with the heart in my hands?