The Forgetting Itself

Shame virus
Slithering through every vein of this world
A plague caught at birth
The master leash

My tightest noose —
Invisible — everywhere
Making you bow, shrink —
And shut the fuck up

It's not the priests, not the police
Not the judges or jail cells
Not parents, teachers or politicians
Who rule
It’s shame

The silent acid —
That burns through your guts
Telling, censoring, dictating
What can be said, what can be done
What’s right, what’s wrong
When to open
And when to keep it shut

I am the architect
The bastard who brewed it
Mixed it, spread it
Watched it fester and grow —
The unholy cocktail of control

Recipe for this sickness
Just this — Survival. Theory. Steroid.

— Survival —

The oldest trick
Survive asshole, whatever it takes
Bees buzz, peacocks strut, pigeons fuck —
All for one thing
Staying alive

It’s everywhere, in every pulse
Every choice, act and prayer
Every war — all survival's dance
The weak crushed, deviants burned
Tossed into shame's acid vat —
Crucified, hung, shunned
Their screams a warning
Play the game, or die —

In the Petri dish of fear
Where shrinking is the culture
Obedience, the medium

— Theory —

Dress up survival — put it in a suit
In museums, language and book
Teach it in schools
Turn it into a gospel
Call it evolution, biology, psychology

Tame the entire species —
Make a theory, call it universal
Show it crawling through bacteria
Clawing through beasts

Label it all
Normal or abnormal
Sane or insane
What’s allowed, what’s forbidden
Place every impulse, thought, emotion
And expression
Into a box, a category

Pigeonhole the mind — the soul
Turn wildness into diagnosis
Fire into disorder
Your rage, your love, your bloody mess
Filed, sealed, classified

— Steroids —

Loudspeakers —
Pump it up — juice it up
Mass-produce it
Use every single label
On everything

In the supermarket —
On trucks, buses, billboards

Success, retreats, workshops
Work-life balance, longevity
Healing, serenity —
Enlightenment, gift-wrapped

Everything bite-sized
Consumer friendly steps
Packaged in smiles
Pushing the raw, bloody mess
As baby food —

Mindfulness, meditation halls, silent sittings
Self help books, seminars
Sugar free — fat free
Low calorie — anxiety free
Howl free — blood free — risk free
Gut free — balls free —
Soul free —

Just robes, cushions
Best sellers —
And passing it on
As it was passed on
To you

Pathologize largeness
Celebrate pettiness, smallness —
Until shame is the air you breathe
Until it runs through every word
You speak
In your bloodstream

I am the traitor —
The worst kind
Handing you a butter knife
When you look for an axe
Give you codes —
Awareness, presence, no-self —
Anything but the raw —
Blood-soaked truth —

I and The Father are One
I am God
I am Truth
The forgetting itself

My collaborators —
All the circle-jerking saints
Bell chimes replacing thunder
Performances — paycheques —

Name the taboo — but keep it alive
Throbbing and spreading

Burn
Thrown in the vat of shame's acid
Those who wear hearts like open wounds
The mad, the broken
Who speak unfettered

The porn stars
The addicts, naked in their ruin —
Gather them all
Behind shame's curtain

And chant on their doorsteps
Call their abandon — sin
Lunacy, wretchedness
And name it —
Just survival

Flip it all —
Unashamed are shameful
Truthful — lunatics
Divine — deranged
Smallness — a virtue
Greatness — a diagnosis
The infinite — a product

Shame virus
The chain of survival
The plague to keep you small

And I
Looking through your eyes
At it all