Jeff Disrupts The Hyperbola

Georges Cunningham

I have a gun in my mouth.

My lips embrace the barrel.

My tongue penetrates the muzzle.

My desire wraps around the trigger.

My fingers designate eternity.

I have a gun in my mouth.

Sullen, the grave calls

A nude pall above the sky

The bell is ringing and cannot stop.

I’ve been pierced before

By the shriek

By the scream

By the purity of grief

The bell is ringing and cannot stop.

I have a gun in my mouth.

I stare off into the distance

Wondering what will be

the last thing that I

gaze upon

Before my fingers

call upon

the infinite black

A flower?

The moon?

An empty sky?

My shoes?

An owl?

The vastness of the abyss?

Dirt?

I sweat and scream again

As I hear the plangent bell

That is ringing and

Cannot stop.

*SNAP*

The plunger descends

Emptiness

Myself and the gun

Both empty

The bell still peals

Even louder than

the eruption

the gun made

as it satiated

my death lust

the bullet made

as it hit

the inside of my skull

and my body made

as it landed

on the hard

and barren

earth

As I relax my fingers

And the gun resets

I see everything

And I see nothing

Forever

But I still hear the ringing

I can not escape

The weight of my life

Even in death

I claw at my ears

I claw at my eyes

I scream

I thrash

And spasm

I want it all to end

The bell is ringing and cannot stop.

An enormous corridor

Rotating endlessly as

I progress down

I see the bell

Clanging with pride

Above a broken doorway

I race towards it with abandon

I open my mouth

And remove the gun

And aim it towards

The endless harsh reality

I fire and lose all gravity

My body a toy in the

Maw of a decapitated god

Swinging wildly, hitting everything

But the bell

With the bullets and my body.

Eventually I am tossed

Upwards towards an impossibly bright light

Drenched in blood

And I feel rain hit my arms

As I drop the gun

And shatter with it

As it hits

The ground

With a thud

That cannot drown the everlasting whine

Of the bell

I begin to melt

In the heat

Of the unyielding echo.

My body continues to despair

As the corridor continues to fluctuate

As the bell continues its cruelty

As the decapitated god continues to laugh

The field where my body lies

Becomes the field where my bodies lie

As I pile up upon myself.

A refrain

Of incessant aching

Of permanent agony

Of boundless sorrow

Of interminable distress

I repeat

And repeat

And repeat

Again and again

And again

With the bell

At full throat

Again and again

And again.

I pick up the gun and

I fire rapidly into my chest

An endless parade of bullets

Drill into my body

Until the blood has run out

A swamp of my blood lies beneath my feet

I fall into it again and again

Until my body has splintered into

A formless mass of

Sodden disintegrated organs

Draped in tattered skin

Locked in a room

With a siren blaring

Always a reminder

Of what has been

Of what is

Of what will always be.

The bell is ringing and cannot stop.