DON’T LET GO

Take hold,
Take hold,
Clinch until your knuckles turn white.

Hold onto it with your right hand
As if it was the very egg that gives you life.
And with your left,
As if it was the very sperm that gives you life.

Look now at what this is.

The knife, plunged, piercing, mangling the flesh;
Thirsty for blood which it cannot drink,
Thirsty nevertheless.
An image of despair, of lost spirit.

You look…you.
Look now at what it is that life has given you,
What you hold onto.

Look at the rotting flesh, at the flames, at the abuse.
Look into the abyss, into the eyes that reflect nothing.
Hatred.

Hold on.
Don’t let go.
If you do, you die.

Hold on.

Consume it,
Smell it,
Taste it.

Roll around in it,
Like a freshly raked pile
Of crisp dry leaves.

It is there that it rests,
Between the last expulsion of air from your lungs
And death.
No, don’t let go.
If you do,
You’ll die.

Hold on
To the grotesque,
To the utterly repulsive
and vulgar acts.

Love them and those who do them.
More than that,
Let’s make this personal.

Love the deep recessive places that conjure the very ideas of such shit.
Love it.
This is where your life resides.

Can you throw a bucket of manure, of shit, out a window
And expect it not to land on something?
And if it were you that it landed on,
Would you be content, could you not accept it?

The smell alone would persuade you to if you had difficulty.
And would you not hope for something better in the times to come?

Do not let go.
Do not hate dung that has fallen on you,
On us.

Love it.
It is the egg and the sperm of hope, of grace,
Of possibilities not before seen and
Thus fertilizes our lives.