The Violence

Ethan Paquin

A poem from the book

Persona Resuscitata

I let her touch me in a way I will not let God touch me. God

will occasionally wake to wrestle with. I spit on his fires I

will not let them transport me. I will overlook the fire,

pain on my little toe. My left foot hurts, foot of the devil. My

hurt a pet apen to nurture. My pet tells me nature to discard.

If I discard the jewels I found I will not make it into heaven.

If I keep the hurt I can trawl it, yo-yo it, dawdle it, dangle it,

make it mine and your own. Make it mine again in a way it

was before it lacked its suffer. It was an empty little animal

trolling a yard made my own by my mere presence. I will

bottle my presence; they will have to buy it. They can not stand

to live the way other bottles tell them. They make so many

demands. They are pages to flip and ideas to catch and think

everything or nothing of. When they put their ears to the bottle

bottle hole as it were

they hear oceans of suffering. We will not stand for suffering. We

will stand for something other than the vast silence. But God will lose

if he spins a fire for I am more wretched than fire. Water is more wretched

than fire; so, fire is killed by water. Silences are filled with pets strutting

in the yard. I have made the continents my yard. I have to admit the feat

was unthinkable. I was spurred by some aching brightness. It was the colour

of coral's forehead. It was the colour of cliffs and her beach house stood

out would not stand without the emptiness of the ocean. Me it

writes, I write