A series of jarring reminders appearing as part of your continuous rotation of denial.
(authored in collaboration with GPT-2)


NARRATOR: A PETROCHEMICAL DEVICE THAT TEMPORARILY TRANSFORMED ONE ANIMAL

AND CHANGED HOW WE THOUGHT ABOUT IT.


ON THE STAGE WE SEE A MINIATURE OIL RIG PRESIDED OVER BY THE NARRATOR

AND A GROUP OF PEOPLE STANDING AROUND SURROUNDED BY CHAIRS AND ANIMALS.


USHERS HELP THE AUDIENCE TO EXIT CARS IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT THE AIRPORT.


You are dead.

It’s your fault that a small segment of the audience’s grace

has failed to hold on.
          I want to be reborn as algae:

          to live in the sun wailing in,

          long pieces entangled

          in weighted treelashes.
It’s impossible to choose between extinct forms that spiral

with gravity, the act of cooling. 
An icy sloth tube pushes air against acid and flames,

then distills into permafrost. 
Imagine what it would feel like inside a baby carriage.

Maybe like floating throughout geology. 
This keeps your lungs from overflowing

out into the stratosphere. 
As we descend in height, gravity becomes more controlled.

Our footprints give rise to heavier soil and ocean currents. 
Once you begin to notice how little space you hold on to, you

won’t be able to pull your belly up in the air. Instead, your

body will push forward with your feet as cables link the

straps.
We make small adjustments

that become a part of our life force if need be. 
How many people can manipulate waves like these snares

in front of a live audience? 
Who is Oil? The honest audience member? 
Oil is pain. Just another day. 
Oil is that joyful fluff which seals wounds,

unraveling ropes, opening when flames come at you. 
Oil is a quilt for crawling down drains. 
After many years as a gas station attendant, your day job

became caring for petrochemical processes (from leeches to

protozoa wings) before diving head first to shore. 
Probably you were not the adult that day! 
Deciding to take in water late at night transformed my body

language into a gas-dependent identity-hole, then coated your

entire face with petroleum jelly from a toothpaste tube. 
          If I breathed, it would become

          impossible to burrow out. 
We recite, before retreating. 
          So I called 911 and pleaded with the

          cops to get over to the cordoning-off.

          The cops responded loudly: “Beads of

          coral gracefully rise from the acid

          canards and our conceptions of

          sustainability begin to wane.”
Sleepless ankles crossing the floor in swim trunks.

This allows you to step out from the acid

when the stairs fall. 
Lace and blood, red, mark where the rope has tentacled. 
Annual beach showers built on site,

Beach waves rise twice weekly in winter months,

winter vacations are now the exception to heaven. 
Our movements can subtly disturb other animals.

Even if we make a mistake, perhaps our placement is enough.
          Sometimes, the students go along with

          me and we go back to our respective

          camps. I pulled something like Alaska

          Black Salmon from this BP screenprint,

          too. I think it makes a cool backpack

          or an emergency medicine bottle. 
Your wishful thinking limits you:

annual vacations. 
You have countless reserves to burn: pebbles, mummies,

crystals, clay. Cast out.

Reinforcing crust which allows movement.
          When we speak about what we come up

          against, it’s simply not your fault

          that I’m not feeling stable.
After all, breathing is a disorder, a state of necessities. 
We make a quick spiral, detaching gravity.

And you aren’t ready yet. 
          What if I’m falling??? I don’t get it.

          Why did you dump this bottle up? 
          (Old wounds are scraped tender

          by insects.) 
WE SEE A VIDEO ZOOM OUT ON TOP OF A PILE OF PETROLEUM RIGS,

FROM WHICH WE BOLDLY DESCEND THROUGHOUT HISTORY

HOLDING OURSELVES ERECT. 
We can be exhausted by what we come up against,

but only by falling. 
On the first try we fail, believing we can climb higher

in order to descend to the ocean liner deck. 
When liquid comes after torture

it’s time to leave the rock in the bag.