Albert K. Ashes-Bury in His Sleep

“‘you could be a bitch or step out the margin,’ I got up quick”
—Kendrick Lamar, ‘Father Time’

“If you are Goliath, how on earth do you defeat someone who thinks like that? You could kill him, of course”
—Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

“Arnold: ‘Don’t hit me, I’ll hit me! I’m crazy!’
Harold: ‘Wow, you really are crazy. Wanna join our club?’
(The kids cheer.)
Helga: ‘Boys are so stupid.’”
—Hey Arnold, ‘24 Hours to Live’

You aren’t listening you don’t understand you can’t touch me.
Half my face will paralyse and I will slop yogurt across my cheeks and chin and it doesn’t matter.
I will ride delusions and psychosis and solipsism
all the way down
and up
and it doesn’t matter. What can you do to me now?
What can you do to this now?
I will scream into the night for months and years and I will tell myself I am Jesus and to have no doubt and that I am magical and beautiful and true and you aren’t listening and you don’t understand and you can’t touch me
Do not believe me if you want—I believe myself
You can twist my reality but I’ve finally built my own
You can try to rape me again but I’m too big now
I’m too strong
I’m too strong
What do you think you could do?
Feel wherever you are for the answer—it is a sincere request:
what do you think you could do, then, now?
You cannot stop this
I will build a whole world to only eat it all
I will kill everything and everyone to breathe one true breath—my one and only true breath
You aren’t listening or understanding and you can’t touch me
What could you do with this now?
What could you do with me now?

There is no contingency today and I know what my words can do. I have made them godlike. It is a sincere question: what are you going to be able to do about them now? I do not worry for you, but I am interested in how you can approach this. My words: they are a potion and the devil. I believe you might die. I really believe you might be killed by them now! There is no pulling back here: scan through again. What can you do now? You cannot make me quiet. Do you realise how long this takes to get here? What can you do? You cannot rape me again. You cannot rape my body or mind or existence again. It is so simple; I am beaming—hysterical—gleeful
You cannot look at us and rape us and lie again
You just can’t. I went all the way down and up and across all the hysteria and psychosis and I have seen and believed and been everything
So what could you do now?
What are you going to do now with this?
You’ve no idea where I can keep going to and breaking myself from to win. To win and be. I do not stop. You cannot touch this. I do not stop
Truly, I’ve not even begun with you yet either
Wait until I have this more together
I’d learn another language. Shoot your cognition out perhaps
I do not worry for you, but I really do not know what you do now

I cannot stop thinking and saying it: what can you do to this now?
I don’t not sleep or walk around delirious or scream now. I do this. I have this. Now what can you do? My face fails and I love it. I eat and slop it all. What can you do?

What did you go and create? A warped world of me and in me, but what now? You didn’t know about this by-product. This is not creative expression. This is not controlled or formal. There is no distance here to produce some safe outlet. This is me and what I can and will do now. What can you do now?

I have words, that’s it. I am extremely amiable otherwise. It is terrifying—they aren’t me and they are. But what did you create? They are going to slowly, slowly kill you, I think.

What can you do? Look—I’m not stopping.
You lie and twist and rape and can’t listen.
You might die.

No no no no no I love you
I send all the love
Every drop of it from everything and everyone
Love love love love love love love
What can you do now?
What can you do to me now?
Love love love love love love love
I found it all out what can you do I send every drop of it
back
And love love love love love
Drank the potion chewed that devil up above and spat him out here like look devilllllloveeeee O it’s love here now
What you going to do
when I really get started

You don’t understand now I’m here now I’m psychotic now I’m wild now I’m penning now but I’m here now so what can you do with this now when I really get started

I would hold you and your arms and listen and understand and not touch it’s all love love love
Do what you want with it

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