1: CREATION
This is a story about Jack & Jill & let me be clear without confusion that it’s true that Jack & Jill went up the hill but Jack isn’t always Jack & Jill isn’t always Jill & I am not always me & you lover you are not always you but sometimes Jack is Jack & Jill is Jill & I am I & you are you but the family isn’t really a family at all & they’re certainly not my family they’re all made up but sometimes Jack is Jack is Jack & I don’t want you lover to be confused so I’m clarifying it now.
In the city of heat I was made in the city of heat from the heat & the sweat & Mother & Father that they had tried & that Mother had lost others before me & that I was some sort of miracle for them & still when I came out of Mother’s body into all that heat & I came out of her body a girl that Mother would not look at me for days & Father seeing a girl he left the hospital & he didn’t come back until Mother was to go home alone & they didn’t come back for me for months.
To begin at the beginning you must start at the bottom & move upwards just like the American Dream just like Father has told me so many times that our people we’re not like other people that we must bow our heads but our people we’re more diligent than others that we endure pain better that we have an entire history of repression no oppression but now we’re here in the land of possibilities & so we must start at the bottom & work our way up just like these hexagrams do.
Us lovers we have created for ourselves our own history & you lover sometimes I just look at you & I am enamored all over again & you lover sometimes you see me staring a fool & you lover you become annoyed & you say Why do you have to look at me that way & I say Do you remember that first time you touched me & I say It was like that time I was stung by a bee & my throat was a fist & I couldn’t breathe & they shot me full of adrenaline & I thought I would die?
A brief explanation: You reader see six lines some whole some broken & these are divided into top three bottom three making patterns to represent: Heaven, Swamp, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Earth & these two stacks of three lines make a hexagram & I am not the originator of this this the ever changing Book of Changes having changed fates for centuries having changed faces just as many times & I am just another translator to offer you a new story.
Father used to be a painter & a creator & Father used to make so many things & I am told that before his hair shined white he was a painter in the country of heat & loving my mother he gave up oils for numbers & Father became a mathematician for my mother & for my mother migrating from the country of heat to here & Father unable to form words & Father bowing his head & cleaning other people’s shit & decades later he retired & began to paint & joy & then the stroke.
47: OPPRESSION
|
Jack feeling a little guilty & Jack thinking maybe he should go back & help Jill but Jack’s playing in the sky with gods & Jack looking down & seeing Jill struggling & Jack suddenly with thick swamp feeling bad.
|
|
Jill splashing fingers in a pool from the bucket & Jill she thinks maybe she’s broken a whole bunch of bones & Jill hurting pretty bad & with her little voice calling out to Jack or Prince Charming or anyone at all.
|
Mother going to treatment & then to work & then to home & Mother working even here cooking food for we family & Mother somehow not complaining & Mother sometimes running to the bathroom twenty times over dinner without exaggeration & I daughter I want to love her & hold her & she being delicate & she being incredibly powerful & it’s the guilt of Mother’s pain that keeps me calling every day & only today Mother telling me with honesty how terrible pain it was
Little girl listening to her father & her father saying how their family is different looking & people who are different looking they are shat on & no one respects them & because of this little girl needs to work extra hard & be extra smart or else people will always make fun of her because she looks different because her people aren’t white & little girl believing it & working hard & little girl going to school & opening little eyes extra wide to look like white kids foolish.
I will give you what the translator says. I’ll tell you exactly what he says: Oppression. Success. Perseverance. The great man brings about good fortune. No blame. When One has something to say, it is not believed.
Brother Big brother sitting in his house immaculate without one particle of speck tainting & brother Big brother with his partner & his partner he can’t sit on the sofa & brother Big brother thinks the sofa is for looking at & his partner has a special chair he’s allowed to sit in & when I visit brother Big brother’s house sometimes I can sit on the sofa but mainly I stand & we watch the news in silence & brother Big brother displays for me new things for his untouchable house.
|
Translator translating & I’m so tired of translating this changing book & it’s a task much larger than me & I’m worried that I’ll miss words & I'm worried that I’m neither a good story teller nor a real honest fate teller.
|
|
You lover you’re worried that you oppress me & I want to tell you lover that you don’t that lover I am just tired & I need to rest & then maybe then I will be ready to defend myself lover I am tired of always defending. |
58: OPEN
|
& Jill not knowing any better opened the knocking door & Jack came in dressed in a suit of fur & Jill said What do you want Jack & Jack said Oh what pretty eyes you have & Jill said What are you talking about?
|
|
& Jack said See what big eyes I have & Jack said Better to see you with my pretty & Jack said See what big teeth I have & Jill said Better to eat me with my darling & she opened her mouth & ate him up whole. |
The truth of it is that Mother has been in remission from cancer for a year now but she still suffers & now the high blood pressure & now the stress from sister Big sister & the truth of it is that Father should have no stress in his life that he’s had now two strokes we can count & so many more he never said hut the truth of it is that now that they are old sister Big sister has returned & now the turmoil all over again because now she’s alone & all kinds of worry for them
|
Four years ago doctors removed inches of Mother’s colon & took away that poison & still there is poison in her body & still there is pain & how many times must Mother’s body opened before she is fully well again?
|
|
You lover what big eyes you have & yet sometimes lover when you are stressed your eyes open larger & one of them wanders away from me & off somewhere else maybe somewhere where we are happy once again.
|
The day little girl ran into the ocean & the ocean opened itself to little girl & made for her a little path for her to walk through & she thought it would lead to treasure she thought she’d found the magic map that would lead to the center of the world & so little girl she went into the ocean full of surge & passion & the day little girl ran into the ocean it did not really open itself for her no it led her to all that electricity & humility & pain & she regrets it to this day our dear little girl does
Water over Water that there is so much Water & don’t you know reader that Water symbolizes rebirth & so here so close to the end this is your opportunity for rebirth here is the junction the crossroad you can open new doors & there is nothing you can’t do reader that your future is open & isn’t this what you’ve been looking for all along reader isn’t this the Fate you’ve been yearning to hear & isn’t this just the kind of fortune you want one of gold opportunities & futures bright? |
Listen to audio of the reading
