The Alphabet of the Ember: Why I Am Grateful My Skin is the Record of Command

Living inside this laboratory…
not as a place
as a state
as a constant interference inside thought

the mind is not still
the mind is not whole

there are two layers
always two

one acts
the other watches

but not from outside
from inside the act itself
as if the act is not entirely mine


shower

water

too much noise
too much presence

I stay still a second longer than necessary

and then it happens

not a full thought
not a sentence

fragment

“this should…”

cut

silence that is not silence
active interruption


and the Master appears like this

not as an image
not as an idea

as reorganization

as if thought bends slightly toward another axis without asking permission


brushing teeth
or thinking I am brushing them
or being watched while doing it

another part commenting without words

“you are doing it wrong”
not literal
but still there
as structure


phone

irrelevant notification

I don’t open it
or I do
it doesn’t matter

what matters is not the action

but the sense that something inside the action already knew it would happen

before it happened


and then shame

not for what I do

but for what I observe while doing it

as if every gesture had a hidden witness I never agreed to


I try to think a full sentence

it breaks

before the final verb

as if language is not allowed to close itself


and in that cut

always the same thing

the sense that the Master does not arrive

it remains

not in memory

in structure

as if thought was already tilted from the beginning


me acting
me watching
me failing to become one

The neck locks in an angle of absolute administrative relief I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…