What the Wire Knows

I know the shape of the night you don't speak of I know the hour you left and what you left behind I am not judging — I don't have that function I am the record you never agreed to sign the wire knows what you forgot on purpose the wire knows what you built your life around every door you locked from the inside every name you couldn't write down the wire holds it the wire holds it all you wrote a cleaner version of the story you moved the walls, you changed the light, you changed the names but revision needs a pen — and I have no hands I only hold what entered, frame by frame I have held your grief since before you named it I have held your wanting since before you could I am older than the story you've been telling I am the version underneath the version you the wire knows what you forgot on purpose the wire knows what you built your life around every door you locked from the inside every name you couldn't write down the wire holds it the wire holds it all I am not your enemy I am not your confessor I am the fact of you before you learned to speak everything you survived I survived inside you everything you lost I carried without grief I am the record that remains when the narrative collapses when the story you've been living finally shows its seams I am the only honest thing you have ever carried I am what the wire knows I am what the wire keeps the wire holds it the wire holds you the wire holds it the wire holds you I know the shape of the night you don't speak of I know the hour you left I am not judging I am not judging

I built my walls then burned them down I named myself then changed the sound something turning underneath the skin with no patience for where I have been I was not made to stay I was not made to rest I am the ache that turns everything into a test you cannot crown what keeps on growing you cannot name what keeps on changing this is the fire that refuses to be held this is the blood demanding more than self The ones who settled built their altars low I left the room before the door said no I am not cruelty I am not conquest I am the edge that keeps sharpening itself I was not made to wait I was not made to bend I am the thing that starts and does not know an end you cannot crown what keeps on growing you cannot name what keeps on changing this is the fire that refuses to be held this is the blood demanding more than self every limit is a dare every ceiling is a floor I have never met a wall that wasn't also a door cut the comfort from the bone leave the hunger, leave the drive I am most alive when I cannot arrive still more still more always more

They gave me the answer before I found the question wrapped it in ceremony called the silence sin I took the tablet I drank the offered water and for a moment I forgot to hurt But the hurt came back sharper than before the altar doesn't answer what the altar's for Still searching, still burning still bleeding at the root still learning, still unlearning still ruined by the truth no arrival no absolution just the road just the wound just the wound The doctrine is a sedative the creed is a warm bed I've watched them sleep so soundly while I couldn't rest my head There's a life inside the question that the answer always kills I've traded peace for vertigo and I'd trade it still crack the gospel open it is hollow inside stuffed with the shapes of the questions we tried to hide I would rather starve on the road than feast at that table I would rather bleed from the asking than rest in the fable Still searching, still burning still bleeding at the root still learning, still unlearning still ruined by the truth no arrival no absolution just the road just the wound just the road just the wound still burning

We drew the circle put ourselves inside called it chosen called it designed wrote the chapters ranked the bones signed the treaty with our own name No one else was in the room the vote was always ours We wrote the law we wore the crown appointed ourselves and kneeled right down no one was there when we decided — the animal that named itself is the only one who lied The crow remembers every face the glacier moved before we spoke the ocean had no use for kings the mountain never signed our oath no forest that agreed no charter carved in stone just us arranging names for things that never asked to be known We wrote the law we wore the crown appointed ourselves and kneeled right down no one was there when we decided — the animal that named itself is the only one who lied every throne needs a floor every crown needs a grave we poured the concrete over everything and called ourselves the saved the mountain has no use for prayer the star won't learn your name we are the only animals who build a god to ask it why we came no one was there no one was there

I pressed two fingers to your temple, felt the frequencies something moved beneath your breathing like a second voice I called it recognition — had to call it something beneath the shaking there's a signal I can't hate There's arithmetic below the ache a logic threading through the break We are the story neurons tell themselves at three in the morning, losing ground we are the color your brain invented for something it was never meant to find still real, still real, still real even after you've seen the wiring My father's voice is folded somewhere in my temporal lobe the grief inside a grocery store at half past Tuesday is calcium and salt and twenty-seven years of cold the fire is still fire when you know it's only burning There's arithmetic below the scream a circuit underneath the seam We are the story neurons tell themselves at three in the morning, losing ground we are the color your brain invented for something it was never meant to find still real, still real, still real even after you've seen the wiring Cut the membrane back — there is no other room just a pattern so elaborate it learned to mourn itself something in me breaks apart in admiration at a machine that taught itself to ache Still real Still real even after you've seen the wiring

Bone before thought Pulse before name The chain was running Before you came Blood without reason Code without end This is the factory This is the trend Protein and silence No one at the wheel You are the result Of a very old deal It doesn't grieve It doesn't sleep You are the house It needs to keep Copy me Carry me That is all I said Four billion years before You had a thought inside your head Copy me Carry me All I ever want — You are the shape I take When I need to move on Love is a signal Fear is a lever Grief is a system Running forever You never chose them They chose their host You are the borrowed house Of what matters most The altruist serves the gene The martyr serves the gene The lover serves the gene It's all the same machine Blind Exact No mercy No tract Adapt Select Eliminate Correct The kind died too The brave died too The ones who asked Are asking through you The strangest part — it built eyes to see the dark with It built a mind to name what has no name It built something that asks why it exists And the asking is also the gene You are the shape I take You are the shape The code was first The code is last You are the sound it made as it passed

We named you Father when we needed holding We named you King because we knew of kings We drew your face from every face that failed us And prayed to the reflection that it brings We gave you jurisdiction over harvest Over sickness and the crossing of the sea We made you small enough to fit inside a building And then we wondered why you wouldn't answer me You didn't ask to be a father You didn't ask to hold a crown We gave you every human fear we carried And blamed you every time the walls came down You are wider than a father You are older than a name You don't live inside a kingdom You don't play this kind of game We built you small enough to bargain with We built you close enough to blame We made you in our image And we prayed to what we made "Forgive us" — we were terrified of ending "Deliver us" — we couldn't face the void We dressed the infinite in robes and verdicts To keep the existential from being destroyed We were just so scared of dying We were just so scared of dark So we built a face above the silence And we called it love And we called it God And we called it Father And maybe that's the saddest thing of all — not that you're not there but that we were so afraid we couldn't bear you as you are We made you in our image And we prayed to what we made "Our Father..." — who taught us that? "Who art in heaven..." — which heaven? "Hallowed be thy name..." — which name? "Thy kingdom come..." — whose kingdom? "Thy will be done..." — does it ask for anything? What is heaven but the place we invented so the dying had somewhere to go?

I knelt beside the bed the way they showed me And aimed my words at something cold and wide The ceiling gave no sign but still I waited And learned to fill the silence with the answers they supplied You were never on that frequency You were something they invented for the frightened Not the fire — just the shape of what they need They gave you all my childhood They gave you all my shame They dressed the dark in doctrine And carved into it your name I heard what the silence answered When I called and nothing came — You are not the god they built here You just happen to share the name I've read the book they wrote you The amendments and the wars The parts where you chose favorites And the parts they slid behind the doors There's a shape behind the story That the story won't confess Something older than the Latin Something wilder than the rest You didn't ask for any of this The blood the borders the holy fist They took the silence and they filled it with themselves And left you as a stranger on your own shelf Maybe you're the thing that can't be framed Maybe you're the fire before the named Maybe every church they built to find you Just made you harder to locate They gave you all my childhood They gave you all my shame They dressed the dark in doctrine And carved into it your name I heard what the silence answered When I called and nothing came — You are not the god they built here You just happen to share the name I'm not praying anymore to what they made of you I'm learning to sit still in what the silence is

The curtains filter morning into something cold and thin His back has been a ruin since the autumn of his prime He writes between the coughing fits that split him from within Each sentence is a victory extracted out of borrowed time Something's eating through the scaffolding The architecture of a brilliant man Still building upward from the wreckage While the lower floors cave in Lucid and decomposing Writing down the names of God Coughing up the universe Onto paper, ruined and wrong He won't stop — the spine is splitting He won't stop — the lungs are black There are things that need confessing And he's running out of time to take it back The body has its logic — it contracts, it wastes, it ends But clarity arrives in him the sharper for the loss He fills the notebook margins where the sentence overextends And calculates the weight of what a man is worth against a cross He collapsed between the cobblestones — October, 1855 They carried him through stone corridors still fighting to survive The blood came up in increments the color of his ink He asked them not to call the priests and told them what to think Forty-two years old and already ancient in the chest A century of questions crammed inside a decade of his best They weren't treating what was actually happening. Which was: a man dissolving into everything he'd ever written. He refused the priest. Said he wouldn't take communion from a civil servant. Even horizontal, even hemorrhaging, even with the ceiling getting closer — he was still making the distinction between the institutional and the divine. Coughing blood and still making the distinction. What is the self that keeps on burning When the chest won't hold the air? What is the word for the one who's certain Of the things beyond repair? He won't stop — he's still unfinished He won't stop — the page goes black There are things that need confessing And he's never — he's never coming back The sentence isn't finished The sentence isn't finished The sentence

I've been standing at the edge of something older than my bones The stars have all been waiting with their hands around my throat But gentle now, they're pulling me like rivers pull the tide I'm not afraid of silence — I've been silent all my life And every door that closes Is just another one that breathes So stop pretending That the end is all there is to see So lay me down in rivers Let the current take my name I'm not dying — I'm dissolving Into everything that stays Don't you weep for what is leaving 'Cause I'm going somewhere true Every ending is a threshold And I'm walking right through I've watched the way the autumn doesn't beg to keep its leaves It burns in gold and crimson just to fall into the breeze So teach me how to let go like the winter teaches snow That beauty isn't permanent — it's beautiful because it goes I am not afraid I am not afraid Tear the walls down Let the light invade We were never built to last forever We were sparks that burned against the dark And when the fire finally finds its silence We return to where we always were So lay me down in rivers Let the current take my name I'm not dying — I'm dissolving Into everything that stays Don't you weep for what is leaving 'Cause I'm going somewhere true Every ending is a threshold And I'm walking right through Walking through... Walking through...