heather’s got the blight
heather’s got the blight
by Cerebella
01.
- xR
violins shred.
violins shred my eyes.
the ceiling burns white.
underneath,
a pothole expands.
he does not interact
with time, only
space black
space.
the titanic sinks
all over again,
&us
stark contrasts in daylight
are slithering at the
low tide of preconscious.
there is an elixir to this.
i know of it!
it isn’t too addictive.
it come in minty-fresh
gel tablets.
chop it in half.
get a real groovy buzz out of it.
02.
- b00bY tRaP
a bearded woman smokes
out her crack pipe
at a long plateau
in a demented addiction.
gathered under a train
overpass,
she joins among the ranks.
a single file of matches
light up.
they blow out at once
upon bells stinging;
flies entering ears,
smacked silly ears.
at first sight, how exhilarating
it always is to be
in love with friction.
what else could fuck &run
at such lightening speed?
the matches burn out.
all scatter.
lone wolves.
search parties.
carnie traditions of silence.
Two pictures of addiction. I think the cause of it is the same, described in 01: the “pothole” giving way to “the low tide of preconsciousness,” which can sink all of “us”, via the image of the Titanic. In 01 “the elixir” is a gel tablet, which “isn’t too addictive” and gives you “a real groovy buzz.” But 02 pictures a booby trap, “a demented addiction”: a “crack pipe” lit up by a “file” of users, who then become “lone wolves” with “search parties” pursuing them, I assume. And that the casual “elixir” of 01 can lead to the “demented addiction” of 02. But I think the poem also speaks to the “blight” of its title, the “he” of the “pothole” bringing down the poet (“my eyes”), “Heather” (a generic female), and potentially all of “us.”
randall, addictions are all created equally and thus of the same cause.
xR is a PSA of sorts for the epidemic of kids dropping like flies from unscrewing say, an oxycodone, and snuffing that shit up. it’s not bc they’re ‘just’ stupid or bc people are ‘just’ drug addicts, it’s because it’s an out of control epidemic. there are some writers out there who make money &awards off of writing about their habitual drug use and make it sound so glamorous, they get credibility for being ‘honest’; but to quote my friend WOW, they’re “no better than a heroin pusher”. that was the point of the extended release poem. the booby trap one was to contrast it with crack-cocaine, to segregate it-the xR poem might be someones neighborhood where shit gets hush-hush and booby trap might be out in the open and just a few neighborhoods away where nobody can afford to care about ‘feeling better’.