bulimic sifu

within this discussion of elliot rodger i know you long for me to see myself as the cracker ratchet, popping caps with trigger snatches of the clapping gadget but you know not the direction of the erection so why so automatically evaluative? why expect me to admit truth? when you ask me why i say i hate white people i say that the truth of the matter is not the end of it, that the truth of the matter is a vomited mess whose penny-worth will come from the convincing lies told about its width, its chunky consistency, its terrible stench. male, white, middle-class, privileged, and a serial comma. a long and terrible argument, but it's probably not 50/50, it's probably kinsey. a spectrum of boring, meaningless good and boring, meaningless evil, spread from subject to period, from white to white. it's ugly even for oxford to discuss these multiple clauses; it makes a truly cruel and unusual sentence to try for a spectrum of whites.

but truth is never a spectrum, oh truth is hot and bothersome, holding truth, being right. sexy and frustrating, oh so frustrating. these are the words spoken today and the words that readers hear: frustration is sexy. sexy is frustration. being right is sexy and being right is frustrating. being frustrated is right. being sexy is frustrating. but writing can be very satisfactory, and a really good written lie is to truth what orgasm is to frustration; because frustration is complicated, and nothing simple was ever really true.

i imagine a monastery, a gathering of students and journeypersons and teachers and masters. a wise elder approaches, to general apprehension. a silence rolls through the crowd like the opposite of a wave, like the end of sound. wonder abounds: she has not imposed herself on the world so very many times. her robe does not flap. she does not leave footprints. when she reaches the chess set in the center of the room she astounds: there are two chairs set on either side of the chess set, but she sits in neither of them. her eyes are like dinner plates, her mouth wooden, lips closed. Her tongue slides out like the swift hand on a grandfather clock, swinging around pursed lips. Her latex-gloved hands pick up the first piece and she begins swallowing them whole, until the board is empty and her stomach is painful. She turns towards the students with pain and suffering in her eyes and vomits. this antsy kasparov, this rubber-gloved grand master, she picks up each sticky piece and wipes it clean until she can strip the gloves and bag the paper. the students applaud. her essay goes largely unread, but it sits on many bookshelves. on most copies there is a sticker on it that covers the first three letters of her name: it is the Pulitzer prize.

i ask without knowing the answer: why praise the falsehood of rare truth? why write as the bulimic sifu, who eats up truth and vomits it back in a gallant mess.  am i to imagine i am not imagining? is my body imposing on you its existence when my eyes make alchemy of sights seen? i hear your complaints like a pestle on wood. i feel you smash and grind the paste into me and make mention of my slowly appearing wooden specks, my imperfections that the paste did not ask for. perhaps your stick tickles the compound and tries to purify it in the disguise of your eyes, motes softly reflected as you add splinters with each swing of your axe, timber. reporter, reporter. see that the conversation between you and me should never be the truth. treat me like a societal problem and just let me lie.