Brett Gallagher

Today, I considered writing about the similarities between a quiet house and the sound produced in one’s body after holding one’s breath for three minutes. I chose to spray paint a sarcophagus on the east wall of my bedroom instead.

I thought about writing a poem while falling to earth from an airplane dressed in a King Kong costume while listening to Salem. I decided to walk to the forest northwest of my house and position myself like an elm tree for an hour while the wind rustled the full sleeve of leaves on my arm.

I contemplated spewing malapropisms while holding down caps lock on my computer and practicing blinking to the sound of dust hitting my window. My chest hurt so I fit myself between two floorboards and thought, ‘anytime, a mephistophelean forest’.

It is easier to hate your country than yourself.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I grapple with the irrationality of a nightmare where the 10th anniversary of 9/11 will be celebrated by a platform diving contest in which participants will freefall to earth and be judged on their form, creativity and alikeness to ‘the falling man’. It is impossible to fully awake from this dream.

To sleep in your oven during the winter is economical, yes.

We are being conditioned on a mass scale.

NEXT >