# 20200601

#### song: "ceaseless tumult" by cassus

a few days ago, i went kayaking with current father. up the river, all the way to the reserve where the deer play. down the river, back to the shallow inlet where we took off.

i swim in a live organism. a formless mass. a glassy mirror that betrays what other people see me as instead of who i am. instead of who i should be, who i should have been. twin eye whirlpools appear after every stroke of my paddle, staring me down until their eyelids close again. its face is littered with dandelion seeds. ethereal acne. their little poofs are terminally soggy. they will never fulfill their purpose.

i don't know what my purpose is, i realize as i float down the river in that orange plastic kayak.

if there is some kind of deity out there, they haven't bothered to tell me. or maybe i'm deaf. maybe i can't hear their proclamations.

if there is no deity at all, and we're just here for the sake of being here, then why am i here? what difference does my existence make?

if i'm a deity, and there are others out there in the outside, and my purpose is to find a way to join them...

something stirs in the water. current father yells something about fish. this glassy surface i stare into as i float, as i maneuver my paddle so i don't crash into the craggy bank, stirs like someone is just on the edges of being reflected in the mirror. someone beyond. someone... outside.

i'm floating in a stream. a stream of consciousness.

a friend thinks i'm a stream of consciousness. that i'm inseparable from host, one and the same. but my voice sounds different when i speak in my head. i type differently. i react to things differently: host's gotten a lot more confrontative and carefree recently, embracing her unique, while i'm still (for the most part) timid and sonderous.

i dip my fingers in the stream of consciousness. the water is clear but upset by a thousand ripples.

am i conscious? am i remembering this correctly?

what would it feel like to merge? for host to hold her hand out and beckon me forward, for me to shatter into a million pieces, for her to close her eyes and let all that i am rain down on her? would i die? or would we each go on, same memories accessible, just severed from each other's contact forevermore, each believing the other had died?

i liked to watch the rain back on that farm a world away. sometimes, after a grueling day of labor, i would outstretch my arms and let the rain wash the dirt away.

true mother, did you wash the blood away? did you let the rain run over my body one last time?

or maybe you used your tears instead.

- マルス (marusu)