Anthem – Manuel Marrero

October 12, 2021

Economic catastrophe. Shrapnel. We are the brick and the mortar. We’re pumping something new into it. Eventually we’ll be the only ones left. We’re spewing kindness, straining the vocal cords, vomiting and crying. I’m writing to get in you. I’m voting Republican next cycle. We are the vaccine-maimed. I’m changing the season, improving the mixing but giving it a lonelier sound by kicking contributors. The piece is an opera, a party, but I want to enunciate. I introduced you to the melody and now I want you to know the lyrics. I have to do that myself. No one can do it for me. I can’t do it for you. 

Don’t let yourself down. The devil works with lies, will weaponize your words against you once privy to your plans, out there in the world uttered, bent and twisted and broken to his will like a horse. but only God knows your thoughts and soul. So be still. Be quiet.

I don’t know what they think an art scene is. They think this is all fun and games but I know it’s darker than that. There’s murder involved, it’s baked in, killing our darlings, I said it before and I meant it — I’d kill my mother to make art, but I’ll go further and say she’d want me to to do it. That’s the point. A sacrifice. Kill your darlings. Because it’s the only way to consign them to eternity, the only selfless act is to self-abnegate, because otherwise you’re keeping what nobody else can have. 

I think I will complete my confirmation and blood rites. I need the why to bury the how. I have an uncanny way of conveying feeling. My sex life isn’t interesting — it’s always the conversations and the silences. The perfect discoveries. Check yourself though, to make sure you’re not just too good to be true, seeming to always say the right things. Be authentic. Get zooted. Waste some good years. Stay pure. 

Anhedonia is antidote. She knows what you need. She’s the one you can’t parse or puzzle out. Be not beholden to twinges of doubt. The body knows what it likes. People only remember how you made them feel. This leaves next to nothing in your control. Live well. It kills them. I want to nurture soft muscles to move. Probe hard palates to rinse themselves. I will kill you all. Trance or fever, so many insomnia moons, so many crystal migraines. So many pills. I’ve been urged to stay on them, I am dependent not an addict. I do not fiend for highs. All these ladies of late capitalism, these wholesome whores, are so fine and so right. Sex is quaint, the new way is to be quixotic. I want to elevate them to high girlboss positions of power. I know they’re bothered that they’re not being mistreated and debauched. I like the ones who smoke weed best. I told my grandfather he was always right about everything. My grandmother knows the days are fewer now, but she doesn’t mind the time. The youth is inspiring me, a millennial, to write, after I predated them with angels and insects before I even knew what I was doing. I’m telling you more than you need to know. Because you’re my #1. I’m just sharing it with you ‘cos I’m neurotic enough to think of everything and I’ve thought of everything. But nothing needs to be said. I’m sentimental and I weep with art. We’re the destined criers, litanies in and of the night, natural disasters of the mind. I choked when you told me you were proud, lump in my throat when you said you once wrote alone, you don’t have to write alone anymore. So long solo without any sort of real relationships, you said. It’s cool a part of something of the moment, shared interest is inspiring. How many years left? Rolling dialogue keep talking breathing. what this is about. They’re hating us ‘cos we’re famous, the fucking Beatles. Riding waves of clout, guilty, bloodsoaked, memed into oblivion, what is love if not grief persevering, grief is forever, stay with me, don’t cut me loose, aesthetes belong with each other, concede nothing, not an inch, seems benign but is pernicious, you’re not ready for real grief, you’re wombsick look at you, you’re greenhorned, cutting throats but letting them survive, multiplying meanings, DID spazzy spastic, woke scenesters, clout chasers, no hot girls, vowels expand and contract like muscles, it’s good to be skinny, emaciated not emasculated, it speaks of ascetic virtue to fast. And we all lick from the same boot. I still haven’t left this world of language, got the shark fin blues, a thousand red weddings in my head as I’m losing sleep with a clean conscience. Because this isn’t about pimping, although pimping ain’t easy and killing is my business and business is good, it must be cultivated, developed, loved into existence. Looks good on you to be honest I mean if you think about it I’m Bernie Sanders and the whole world is Elizabeth Warren. I’m the mad science, the psy op that matters. The Wizard of Oz. Social breakdown. There’s no other option but to blow up. I don’t drink ‘cos I like to work, and nothing gets done in a hangover. The party is all the time, though. I may be sober, leading the new temperance movement, at the vanguard of the new christian romantics, but I’m always high on weed and amphetamine. These are the best drugs if you don’t abuse them, dosage makes the poison but I’m always on benzos and I’ll tell you it’s the best drug, benzene rings are diamonds are forever Days finite, foliate numbered, these slivered things, for obvious reasons I will not be present I have nothing nice to say at the time so I will abstain, nobody understands what happened, congratulations it doesn’t make sense to anyone but I know you love me with your hate and I take it personally, in stride, you’re oiling my industrial machine with your salty tears and greasy sweat, you’re looking run through, ne plus ultra, politely but sternly we part ways. counterculture insomnia is intoxication, time is nothing. This is a jackpot you’re drunk once in a generation spending event. Vegetal lungs of shit A cold war gathering intel this derangement has come full circle.