EVIL MTN GOES TO CHURCH

001.

the first thing i notice is the weathr how my body starts to blur as soon as i've spotted the tree line the sound of old nature puddling in corners i take my time in the sweet field i spread a bit of it around and the grass dies i sit down in the smell of bees i'm not ready

002.

i reach my hand into the sky craggy thundr fingrs touch the sun spit down on me, sky i'm branding the back of my hand with the bulb of the sun and for a little while it's night for a little while the world will look up at the dark and say to itself i know that look for a little while the world will peer around to see if someone ovrheard the world will slip into an unlit doorway it will assume that someone did

003.

the whole time i'm tricking the sound of my mothr's name out of my mouth over

and over

and over

and over

and except it sounds like the sound of a videotape rewinding in an empty room and that's not quite how you say it 004.

i could stand in the middle of the sweet field touching the bulb of the sun for the nxt three years and it'd be easy it only hurts because i now know what my smoke smells like but i still wouldn't be ready

005.

the trees are dead beneath their clothes makes it hard to see makes it hard to

talk abt it

006.

I. the sun fumes seep out of the back of my hand and show me what to do and where to go where to step my feet where to grind my heel until it crunches II. the insects take advantage of the light to take a failed branch for themselves and bite a cross deep into the wood III. the sun inside my hand softly takes me by my other hand says

not that way

not that way

007.

i brought my knife to church because this morning i woke up and i decided something

008. the path i find is lined with teeth and furthr in old cans i recognize a few of them the teeth i feel a little bettr despite evrything

009.

starting down the path i immediately feel naked i hear mouse bones whittling undr something but i cover myself in the feeling like paint i carry on 010.

oddly enough it turns out i've actually been stuck inside this forest for twenty-six years and i could make a comprehensive list of evry single bullet in here and why it bothrs me so much i'd rathr just eat them though and then forget if i'm gonna be honest

011.

i know i've made it when i see knobs bear tracks in the dark where the ash has been brushed awkwardly from side to side a fucked-up VHS recording spewing from the mouthway of the largest tree sanctity, more or less it takes me ages to get comfortable i try sitting down directly on my mechanical parts but there's thrashing i try sitting down on my sun hand but there's thrashing and stench i try to picture fuzzy molds embedded with pastels as i lay down flat on my face i try being happy til eventually i'm just full of frantic mumbling my scalping song and digging at the soil with my knife chewing out of habit

and i don't stop until i'm buried to the waist my voice lolling halfway out of my mouth it's not long before i'm able to put ear to ground and glean up the gnawing of unseen things thru the dirt that familiar burn along my lower parts the run of my blood into the parched earth i know of no other way to keep still

012.

the video braying from the tree displays a murderer it doesn't say that She's a murderer but you can tell She's telling a story to the camera pausing here and there to feed the flood with buckets you can barely see Her through the ambience all scrunched up She speaks for just a few odd minutes in a voice that sounds wet you know that it's late somehow in the person She was and then cut a flash of static that i feel inside my veins the video starts over and She never finishes Her story no pulpit no choir no alcohol

(save the smell) i'm the only one here and i can't stop sighing

013.

a txt from the artist reads

[found a dead wolf husked up in the

middle of the book i'm reading]

my reply is

[save me some]

in the video the murderer says something about thorns i can almost feel so many pages on Her breath i'm leaning into it

[i'm sitting in church right now]

and the whine of all that old electric light blankets evrything it touches

[i'll be sure to save you extra]

014.

the story of the murderer is diffrent evry time the video clears its throat

015.

in one story the murderer is howling but whether She's howling in Her story or just crying out Her recollection in a single

bloated all-drawn-out

missile of a howl is left up to the viewer

016.

in one story the murderer is an author writing with a hammr in Her clean hands (She pauses then knee-deep in the river to wink into the camera face) it's August and She's working on a book regarding hives constantly distracted by the beasts who run amok inside Her building but in a good way holding Her handwritten list of the things that Her book will be meant to destroy She knows exactly what She wants until the fog seeps in beneath the door and evry solid thing begins to burn

017.

in one story the murderer hands me an unopened lettr and says tell evryone with a straight face i touch the cinnamon smell of the envelope for an hour or two at least i worry and shout and do very little else

018.

in one story the murderer does nothing simply wavers in the water getting clean i assume She means She's visited several foreign countries and signed things there and died a very small amount each grey morning and raised beautiful children in Her favorite state and taught them arithmetic and simply pretended to want a great deal before She lost evrything 019.

in one story the murderer is full of thorns

020.

i watch the video the murderer for one hundred years jamming all Her stories down my gullet rubbing them across my cheeks as the biters down below me skin a half of me to shreds and swallow piece by piece i'm a tiny silent city in the middle of a forced evacuation i die with the fuzz of Her grain face mucking up my blood as it leaks having learned nothing

021.

[what if i gave you a lettr and told you to tell evryone]

[i'd tell almost evryone]

[and see if you noticed]

022.

the nxt time i decide to go to church i crawl the whole way there i drink a ton of milk beforehand and spit up all over the place a trail of runny white to mark my passing thru the sweet field this time i make sure to fill myself with better gasoline

this time

i declare i will make myself believe

023.

the darkness in the dander of the trees is even deadlier this time not to say it's bigger or more tolerant of pain just familiar when i raise my hand to spray the sun into its eyes it remembrs now it knows my face

024.

i swim thru the blackness holding my name overhead i press myself along with the thigh bone of an antelope singing into ash making muttrs with my sticky throat i empty myself and the doors shed open i say neithr thank you nor i'm sry

though i crave them both 025.

the church space has been locked from the inside-out in order to be present i must constantly be thinking of the password which is MOLLUSK in case you were curious

026.

it takes me ages to get comfortable

027.

the murderer remains She is jarring to the touch i can't touch Her but i know this i touch the video of Her but it's something else submerged maybe is the word or cysts i touch the birthmark of Her screen time i touch loam and TV smoke with my sunlight with my brand we share a moment when She looks up at the camera for the very first time

over

and over

and over

and over

and

028.

the bottom of the bottle of Her life is peeking thru and then is drowned

029.

i point my phone at the lump of Her and say remembr this

but Her stories become drowned out by the sound of a burnt horse trespassing and choking from somewhere very close by who continues to be loudly mistaken until i put my phone away

030.

i bite my nails until ink wells up in their pits and write down evrything She says

1. in my notes 2. on my arms 3. on Her face 4. on the final vestiges of June 5. on a color-coded graph that doesn't belong to me 6. on the ache running up and down my forearms 7. in a park somewhere 8. on my chest skin 9. on a passing blackbird 10.on the fabricated memory of Her face 11.on Her face 12.on a log 13.on the video tree 14.on a slip of lined paper 15.to study later 16.to cuddle later 17.to pick out of my teeth later 18.to make millions with 19.on Her face 20. in record time 21. in exchange for a crude painting 22.on vacation 23.in an oil field struggling to live 24.so i can meet Her 25.on Her face 26.on the other side of the passing blackbird 27.so i can sleep 28.for those less fortunate than i

29.on Her face 30.for my own goddamn selfish reasons 31.on Her face 32. just so i can tear it up later 33.on Her face 34. in the morning 35.on Her face 36.until my eyes grow tall 37.

and then i run out of room and i have no choice

031.

the nxt time i go to church i don't go to church i just wake up there one day after a night of celebration with blood and bits of reason still embedded in my knuckles i refuse to admit i was wrong

032.

weeks pass

033.

a txt from the artist reads

[i'm glad about the lake the other night]

[i had fur]

[but pls]

[let's nvr ever mention it again]

034.

i bury my face in the foam from the unopened lettr

035.

a lather of teenagers joins me in church their hair is painful to behold! see also: intoxicating they leave a single tiny knot beneath the video tree all of them start speaking in heron a rowdy cloud doubtlessly talking about art again or fistfights they form the strangest angles in the dirt the hair stands up along my arms makes a crackling noise when i move as it does evry other time i'm actively trying to avoid someone they notice they scoff in belligerence then go silent i hear a creek off somewhere dancing one-by-one they come to stand in a half-eaten circle around me over the course of an hour

eyes blinking in a punkish sort of way surrounding me with shade doing their best to pretend that i never occurred to them

036.

they tear me apart when i won't let them with astonishing focus

037.

my last thought is i wonder who told them the password

038.

my last last thought is i wonder who told me the password

039.

[*fun]

[i meant to say i had fun]

040.

I. i wake up on the ground as a severed head and think

ok

yes II. i wake up on the ground as a severed head and say

of course III. i wake up on the ground still a mess and no one is surprised

041.

i wake up on the ground as a severed head running drool whistling from the ruin of my neck there's an overwhelming smell of dust the teenagers have piled my parts and gone to stomp leaving me alone with my embarassmnt with Her language i've been stained with the darkness of the dark beneath the trees i've been here all my life the sun is slowly failing from my severed sun hand just in time for fall just in time to start the long and bloated process of rebuilding but not without complaint

042.

in the days that span my body blending i discovr several things

043. the businesswoman comes wearing white to stand in the center of the sermon and practice her posture breathing in ninety-seven different ways as she does so as the video plays and the murderer keys Her name into running water the businesswoman seems hopeful she leaves a scattering of gravel at the base of the video tree as her fragile humming runs along the entire length of her spine

044.

i let my meat sit still enough to fall back into place a little more

045.

the drunk crashes in from out of her life to pay a visit throwing stones evry time she sees a fruit bat thru the branches upon sitting thru a story that touches on dismantling a pillbug she flinches she runs away howling clutching her bottle to her chest like it's already winter

046.

i secretly wish i could hear the ending of that story more than any other story

047.

i take my time holding all my ribs feeling the weight getting the color down discovering all the correct angles i take evry possible precaution in their realignment

//nurturing i can't let myself be perfect

048.

i take great pains to reconnect the impossible gender in my possible heart as messily as possible

049.

here we see the villain and his complicated children squinting in their Sunday best and strangling their hands he lines them up in order from the loudest to most obviously false and each of them declares a single thing that they despise they leave without touching even one dry leaf

050.

a firefly tickles at my body as it's laying in the black dirt waiting for the glue to scab over 051.

can't you hear that television lurking in the brush scaring off the local wildlife with its big fiction

052.

the first thing that my newer body does

my sore body

my thick buzzing body is stand at the edges of the church space shining my cell phone out into the woods

my massive error body without a single wasted movement

my /////////////// body i have no idea what it's trying to tell me my how could this happen body and i don't care

053.

my body takes my severed head into its mitts and listens to the glowing of the murderer thru my startled vibrations

054.

meanwhile the businesswoman comes to rest her eyes until a phone call finds her she signals to me in secretive hand gestures the entire time and tells the person on the other line that she can't help feeling cornered whenevr she's awake

055.

my body hangs my severed head from a branch by my endless black hair and goes to talk to her fifteen minutes in she spies the unopened lettr in my body's hand and spends the rest of the conversation covering her eyes 056.

they part ways with a firm handshake the businesswoman seems hopeful

057.

my body returns to show me a txt from the artist that reads

[i want you to be happy in the dark]

it doesn't give me time to think up a reply typing something out with its back turned so i don't have to worry as a little attic light blinks off and on behind my eyes

058.

just try to get some rest yeah?

059. the teenagers return holding little wings glistening shifting all the blame from one knife to anothr they look at my body

they look directly at my severed head they look at my body

they look directly at my severed head they look at my body

they look directly at my severed head they look at my body

they look directly at my severed head and they gift my body with their little wings somewhere in their midst a siren goes off somewhere in their midst a swallow makes a grave mistake and is destroyed

060.

my body lays the wings down one by one at the feet of the video tree i watch my body do this and am proud of how ungracefully it bows its head

061. the pastor stops inside to sic her dogs on us check how things are going the dogs sniff at our legs and spit doubting us openly but it's ok i hand the pastor a twenty dollar bill life goes on

062. it's getting late the trees are singing just beneath the stories of the murderer my severed head is hanging and it's swaying in such convincing fashion

063.

as the murderer sinks in up to Her neck and speaks of bloody noise the teenagers and i

my body body

form a prayer circle walloping each other but politely just to break the skin my knife is in my body's hands and i take the blade

the blade of my knife body

and punch it straight into my sun hand the teenagers are gibbering in reverence all holding knives in their teen fingrs as my body goes to each one individually

my commandeering bird body

to pour some dying sunlight on their forehead muss them up a bit make 'em feel like they're still wanted and then stab them in the throat they stand in lines for this they prowl around the block and they pour sugar on their fruit

they stand up in front of the blackboard and wait patiently for me they stand in a half-eaten circle or else with astonishing focus

064.

their bodies falling form the strangest angles in the dirt

065.

i clean my knife exactly the way i was taught

066.

the darkness presses close obliterating all the bear tracks the black dirt and now it's just me and the murderer Her soggy voice and Her face the traps shooting off all around us the clearing and Her face and the bobbing of my severed head my body and Her face and Her face and Her face and Her face and Her face and Her face and Her face and Her face and the pounding of a hammr in Her clean hands

067.

i take my severed head down gently now

to the sound of something cooing my body stuffs my head into the fat maw of the video tree evrything's exciting it's the squelching of red mud my filthy empty sun hand i'm standing how i wanna stand i'm barking how i wanna bark i feel her bunching up behind me gumming up evrything i'm leaning in as my body takes my knife and opens the unopened lettr i open my mouth and the truth slurs out in a great and irradiated flood

068. [there's nothing wrong with being

happy in the dark]