[dVerse] November 05 - Wildly Constant

Wildly Constant

The wind has been moving things around again.

A dry leaf under the door.
A receipt from last Tuesday.
A newspaper folded open
to a face I have no reason to remember.

I collect them.
The leaf goes into the bin.
The receipt, into a drawer.
The face follows me to the kitchen.

Some thoughts have no use for doors.
They enter through the smallest available gap,
take a seat,
begin again where they left off.

I can be measuring rice
when an old conversation resumes.
I can be washing a cup
when a possible disaster requests consideration
from every available angle.

There is a particular kind of fear
that makes a person stay indoors
even when the room has become unbearable.

I have called it cowardice.
I have called it hibernation.
I have tried other names.
I have watched the days gather outside
like people waiting for a house to open.

Sometimes I try to leave one condition of mind
and return to the body.

There is the floor.
The weight of the feet.
The cup in my hand.
The ordinary business of being located somewhere.

But even this return acquires an audience.

The characters are watching
the other me leave the scene.
They watch her become the one
who is supposed to be here,
the one with a body, a family,
a room that apparently belongs to her,
and several people who know
what she ought to do with it.

Their watching brings me back
to the scene I was trying to leave.

I have to begin again.

Outside, a branch keeps knocking
against the window.
I cannot tell whether it is asking to enter
or trying to get out.

I look up the phrase: sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Hosea, eighth century BCE. Prophet of doom.
A warning about what a people cultivate
and what eventually grows from it.

I read about the destruction in the book,
then the promises of restoration,
then the tradition of Hosea's prayer,
the doom it was said to avert.

I have been reading about wind
for longer than I intended.

The phrase assumes a field,
a hand scattering seed,
some relationship between action and consequence.

What does the wind assume?

It moves the neighbour's washing,
pollen, ash, the fine remains of a roof.
It carries things that never agreed
to become part of its journey.

I return to the room.

There is the family,
the familiar arrangements,
the instructions disguised as concern,
the small permitted dimensions of a life.

Reality has its own weather.
It presses against the skin
with the dull persistence of furniture
that cannot be moved.

The first job was a bad room
with bad people in it.
The salary barely qualified as money.
I left with the peculiar exhaustion
of someone who has been underpaid
in more ways than one.

The second job felt like a discovery.
I liked the work.
I remember the relief of finding it,
the small astonishment
of being somewhere I wanted to work.

The work is still good.
The people have found other ways
to make it difficult.
The new contract arrived
with the old number in it.

No increase.
Same amount. Three contracts.

I read the figure again.
Numbers are very good at staying still
while everything around them deteriorates.

My father sends me job openings.
He knows the kind of work I would dislike.
He knows the kind of work I am absolutely unqualified for.
I think he knows I know this.
Still, the links arrive,
one after another,
as though the misery of this job
might eventually make his choices
resemble mine.

My sister and I do not speak.
Sometimes I think of how much
she has inherited from him.
She got almost everything.
I got the scream.

My mother and I are like
two people drowning in the same well.
We keep reaching for each other
because there is no one else
within reach.

Sometimes a hand is a hand.
Sometimes it is the thing
that pushes the other under.

Even that, perhaps,
in a reduced quantity.
A quarter-strength inheritance,
diluted somewhere between
his throat and mine.

His voice could occupy a house.
Mine has to calculate
whether it is safe to leave the room.

I have been calling this fear.
Cowardice, sometimes.
The family has other names for it,
I imagine.
There are so many names
for a daughter who does not move
when someone points towards a door.

I had thought returning would mean
the end of the investigation.
Instead, I am here,
trying to determine which part of the day
I am allowed to inhabit.
The branch knocks again.
I listen.
The wind has not answered.
It has never needed to.

~ Oizys.

Wrote this for dVerse OpenLinkNight # 419 on 05 Nov 2026. I am super late, as usual, but I took my sweet time and somehow turned a pseudo-rant + stream of consciousness into something resembling a poem.

Some notes, echoes and listening.

• Hosea 8:7 — “Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” - The verse belongs to a prophetic warning about Israel's conduct and its consequences. The wind in the poem begins with this image of sowing and reaping, then moves beyond the logic of cause and consequence.
• Hosea 14 — A promise of restoration - A countercurrent to the destruction and judgement elsewhere in the book.
• “The Wind” — Yusuf / Cat Stevens (1971) - A song about listening to the wind and the soul, and the uncertainty of where one will end up.
• “Listening Wind” — Talking Heads, Remain in Light (1980) - A darker political song about alienation, intrusion, and resistance. Its wind carries a very different history from the one in this poem.
• Listen! The Wind — Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1938) - An account of the Lindberghs' 1933 transatlantic survey flight, in which wind and weather become practical forces that determine what can and cannot happen.

Even Their Misery Has a Life to Happen In & I Am Just Counting My Avocados

29th October, 2026. 11:37 PM. I had dinner, combed my hair over the dustbin, went to shit, cried over the commode, took a bath, and came to bed. I looked here and there on the internet while I was thinking of writing the next blog post. I read the last one. I am impressed. Wow. But not too much, because I am feeling like writing again. Which means the pangs of hideousness, anxiety, paranoia, sadness, loneliness, meltdowns, resentment, hatred, distrust, defeatism, misery, hopelessness, etc, etc, etc are back. So back. Should I pick up where I left from? Try and trace till this point of being cramped up underneath the blanket again? Breaking down again? I can't even remember most things. I think it started on 17th October, Saturday. I had to work that Saturday even though it was my off day. But, I had come to terms with that. The day before I had ordered groceries and with it, my second avocado. So, Saturday morning, before starting work, I made the same guacamole toast. This time, the fruit was ripe and soft, so I made the spread, and it creamed nicely. It was a soft morning. I woke up early, did household chores, dishes, put up curtains, made the avocado toast breakfast, and as I was finishing making my guac, my father suddenly asked me a question. He asked if the results or information about the next steps for the job he had asked me to apply for are out and I should check it. It was a job my mother kept pushing me to apply for despite me telling her that I don't want that kind of job. So, I didn't really apply for it. What do I say to him, if not, okay, I will check it. I said exactly that, took my guacamole and bread and went to my desk. I just couldn't stop thinking. Did he just ask that randomly? Did he just ask that to strike up a conversation? Did he ask that with some ulterior intention? Did my mother tell him to ask that? Did he ask my mother first and he didn't get an answer via her from me so he asked me directly? Why? Why is he talking to me? Why? Why are they doing this? What should I do? How can I get a job by myself? I know for a fact that the jobs they suggest are not a fit for me and I wouldn't even get them. And, I don't even want them. But. No. Not but. And. And, at the same time, I am flailing around trying to find a new one. I continued working. I have started properly loathing this workplace finally. Not the type of work. The clients, for sure, because they are mostly government bodies or shady organisations trying to get close to government bodies. And, the workplace colleagues except one or two are insidiously annoying. I imagine the entire organisation collapsing on them when I leave. It's my wistful thinking. And, it led to this rotting spiral of dissociation and daydreaming. Ever since, I have just been dissolving into MDDs and DPDRs. Just constantly engulfing time and days and nights with my daydreaming about different situations. Days and nights passed by. I kept daydreaming. About this and that. About people I came across on the internet. I kept reading about them and I kept imagining things. I made up worlds in my mind. A poem came out of it. Art direction. It's because the person I was diving deep into and the world he belonged to fed fodder to my daydreams. I kept digging and digging while my brain and my body kept flailing and flailing. My real existence, on the other hand, was paralysed because this addiction to my daydreams distracted me from my ongoing existence. Which is a comfortable stoppage point. But it's temporary. In these daydreams, I am just flowing in life. Flowing with life in me. Talking to people. Loving people. Going out. Creating things. I daydreamt about writing plays. Directing plays. The poem for dVerse’s Oct. 22 prompt, Art Direction, was bred out of such a daydream where I kept imagining myself sitting amongst people, some of those I kept diving deep into and some of my coworkers from my current workplace (but, they are all nice to me in these scenarios...) and we were talking about an event with many plays which had one of mine. The one I kept thinking about on the commode which I also mentioned in my last weblog post. I kept talking to them. Telling them about how I came to be there and I daydreamt a back story. I ran away at 18 or 19 (deliberately blurred the age) and I ran with a boy a little bit older than me. We lived together for a month. And then he left me. I went back. Six years or so passed. We bumped into each other again and we wanted to ask each other if we wanted to run away again but we were meeting after six or so years, so we maintained the superficial formality. And we arranged a second meeting where we started off with the same superficial formality but then we abruptly told each other at the same time that we would like to run away again. And the third meeting happened at the airport with our bags packed. I daydreamt about writing plays after he left me when we ran away for the first time. And, during this event with plays, I am bringing one or two of them back. A play about a sub whose partner dies after 20 or 22 years of their dom-sub marital relationship and she doesn't know where to put her devotion anymore. She processes her grief while undoing the labors of submission she carried and performed for him. Their dom-sub dynamic had a core aspect of her consuming leaves for him. It was set during the Sumerian period. The name I gave was “The Leaf”. Another play was based on the oldest known prison diary in the Western tradition and one of the earliest surviving first-person accounts written by a woman: The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. Perpetua was arrested alongside her enslaved companion Felicity and others for refusing to perform sacrifices to the Roman gods. In my play, I attempted to show Felicity’s narration. I named it: “The Most Ancient Slave Diary”.  Anyway, such were the days and their dreams spiralling in my brain. All while, my real and actual life was passing by. And, I was also meagerly passing through it. The two courses were coming to an end. I had taken up another voluntary project while another voluntary project was lined up. All while overworking. I had to prepare two projects for my courses. I was doing fine until deadlines came too close and I just collapsed and started procrastination. Over the weekend (24-25th), I kept delaying and delaying. I crossed deadlines and then I begrudgingly picked them up. I did them over long periods of nights. Stayed up late and completed them. Although I missed a meeting on Monday that was set up by one of the course coordinators with an external advisor. I kept thinking of an excuse while haphazardly finishing the presentations and submissions. I completed it anyway and both of the presentations happened on the same day, yesterday, one in the morning and one in the evening. After that, I ate some leftover store-bought almost-stale snacks and cozied into my blanket and slipped into the daydreams while watching the videos of those people. I had moved to the next generation of those people actually and was deep into the lives of their kids who are, by the way, as old as me. And, they have had a thousand trips to Europe, they are married, have done and abandoned various projects, etc, etc, etc.  Today passed by as well with work. It was a bit frustrating. But in the back of my mind. I was still soaking my brains and body and my existence in these daydreams. It all came down when my mother came to my room in the late evening. And kept poking me to get up and start preparing for dinner. We did a little bit of “you go first” and “no, you go first”. She got up after a while and I went up as well. She was reheating the food while I took out some plates and chopped some cucumbers and raw mangoes for salad to have with dinner. I had my dinner while diving deep into their life videos and after I was done, my mother was ready to have hers. I did some nightly chores of locking doors, checking windows, etc. before going to the bathroom. My mother told me the cyclone has had a major impact on our village. She smiled while she told me. You’d think it was a sad smile. But, I have always felt very uncomfortable with that smile. Because, I know the intention behind that smile. It's that peculiar, almost smug satisfaction of knowing something that I apparently don't. Or, at least, getting to make me feel like I don't. Like she's informing me of something and simultaneously reprimanding me for not already knowing it. And, somehow, I am supposed to feel guilty… guilty for not knowing, guilty for not asking, guilty for not being sufficiently concerned, guilty for sitting in my room, going about my life, while things are happening elsewhere that I am apparently expected to know everything about. It's not just her. My father does it. My sister does it. This strange, condescending way of talking to me as though I am perpetually unattached, uninformed, unaware, incapable of understanding things unless they explain them to me. And, even their explanations come with this underlying insinuation that I should have known better. If I ask questions, I don't know anything. If I don't ask, I don't care about anything. And, if I already know, there is always something else I apparently don't know. I don't know how much of this is deliberate. But, I feel it. That constant, almost imperceptible effort to make me feel smaller than I already do. 31st October, 01:33 AM. I paused writing last night and let my mdd chloroform me to sleep. I woke up in the morning. Got to work after making tea. Simultaneously, the rooms were getting cleaned. Everything was back to normal between me and my mother. By the way, my sister & I do not speak. I worked and worked and worked today. My mother and I chatted in between  throughout the day. She was telling me bits and pieces of what was going on. Whether father is going to visit the village. How much crops are lost. The water engulfed the whole district or two. And, there is possibly another cyclone coming. I feel like I have forgotten how to apply for jobs. I had a meeting with a co-worker I work with. We ranted about the vapidity and vainness of the project we are working on and how the client is an abuser-whitewasher and the government is piggybacking on it to beautify their name and even our organisation didn’t oppose it until they got snubbed. I finished work and did a major and desperately needed grocery haul with my mother after eating lunch at around 6:30 PM. Yes. I think I heard my mother tell someone, “She doesn’t know how harmful it is. Or, maybe. Actually, she knows.” I had been ruminating about making a paneer tikka wrap with these tortilla wraps I saw and this recipe I stumbled upon. So, I bought some items for that. Since I bought those, I didn't get an avocado... Fingers crossed if and when I make them. I probably have to make them over this weekend. Late evening, my mother and I put on a bedsheet. It’s always fresh to put clean bedsheets after rooms are cleaned. And, I asked her if she would oil my hair. I oiled my hair after a long, long period of time. I window-shopped some clothes [pants, particularly] and some basic skincare. I do not and cannot use skincare products the way people are using them these days. I cannot even buy that much. Because the ones I selected today are still in the cart. I don’t know if and when I will buy them. It has also been a long time since I have used moisturiser and face wash. I was a diligent body moisturiser-er as well. It stopped a good amount of time ago. Anyway, I didn’t have dinner. My mother had her dinner and went to sleep. And, I was scrolling through some more recipes of the wraps as midnight approached. Then, I had the urge to eat some puffed rice. So, I made that as my dinner. While chowing down, I watched those people again. After finishing that, keeping the actual dinner in the fridge, shutting off all the lights and closing all the doors, and spiralling quietly into MDD for a little while, I came to write. I wrote the three pending dVerse poems. Read, read, read if you want to. I have a working Saturday tomorrow. I am going to have a major withdrawal symptom as I have no classes, no quizzes, no tinkering around to build projects from next week.  By the way, the daydreaming still continues. It always snowballs. I have been rummaging deeper and deeper into the lives of those people. So “perfect”. Such “perfect” families. Such “perfect” education. Such “perfect” autonomous jobs. Such “perfect” creativity. Such “perfect” videos. Such “perfect” failures. Such “perfect” successes. Such “perfect” breakfasts. Such “perfect” proposals. Such “perfect”  partners. Such “perfect” friendships. Such “perfect” girlhoods. Such “perfect” trauma stories. Such “perfect”  fuck-ups. Such “perfect” uni lives. Such “perfect” gap years. Such “perfect” heartbreaks. Such “perfect” recoveries. Such “perfect” relocations. Such “perfect” apartments. Such “perfect” inconveniences. Such “perfect” existential crises. Such “perfect” rebellions. Such “perfect” mistakes. Such “perfect” second chances. Such “perfect” freedom to squander time, money, opportunities, relationships, and still have something to fall back on. Such “perfect” boredom. Such “perfect” uncertainty. Such “perfect” lives where even the wrong turns seem to lead somewhere. Even their failures have a narrative. Even their aimlessness has an aesthetic. Even their misery seems to have a life to happen in. Here I am. Counting my avocados. I have one, and then two avocados. A small, almost tender continuity. I have a soft Saturday morning. I make breakfast. My father asks one question. And suddenly, what was supposed to be an ordinary morning becomes a series of interrogations, suspicions, worries about employment, autonomy, agency, life, freedom, abandonment, and escape. Then the daydreaming takes over. Meanwhile, my actual life continues demanding labour, presentations, deadlines, domestic participation, and decisions. Constantly ricocheting between the life in which I am making things happen and the life in which things keep happening to me. After my mother and I put on the bedsheet, I saw a packet of gummies. I asked her, "Where did this come from?" She told me my sister's friend got it from Thailand, and gave it to my sister. My sister gave it to my mother. I asked her if I could try them. So, probably I am gonna go to bed, try some gummies, and drown myself in those videos, while my daydreams ruminate on the rock bottom of my mind [...] ~ Oizys.

[dVerse] October 29 - The Spellchecker Has No Objections

At nine, the inbox Mondayed my pulse
on a perfectly innocent Thursday.

First came a gentle reminder.
Then another.
Then one marked urgent
with the friendliness
of a knife wrapped in tissue paper.

None of them
felt particularly gentle.

By noon, I had semicoloned my answer
to the employee satisfaction survey:

Yes, insofar as the rent;
no, insofar as the body.

Human Resources wanted
a single selection.

Strongly Agree.
Agree.
Neither Agree nor Disagree.
Disagree.
Strongly Disagree.

There was no box
for my body has been attending meetings
my mind was never invited to.

I selected Neither.

Apparently, that was neutral.
Apparently, I was doing well.

At five, the crows asterisked the sky
above the bus stop...
small black footnotes to the city's claim
that nothing unusual had happened.

I carried the unfinished form home
beside an electricity bill,
a crumpled receipt,
a list of un-bought groceries,
and the remains of a lunch
I had eaten without tasting.

That night, I opened a blank document.

I wrote:
I would like to resign from—

The sentence stopped.

I read it twice.

The spellchecker objected
to every verb I had invented.

It had no objections
to the job description.

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse Meeting the Bar: Verbing Your Verse, hosted by Björn Rudberg on October 29, 2026. The prompt encouraged turning nouns and adjectives into verbs, particularly transitive ones, to make metaphors act rather than merely describe. I used Mondayed, semicoloned, and asterisked. The spellchecker is entitled to its opinion. And, I am entitled to mine.

[dVerse] October 27 - The Suggestion Box Has No Opening

At the annual celebration of Respect,
the family unveils a suggestion box.

It has no opening.
We applaud the workmanship.

An uncle explains
that disagreement is a Western disease.
The ceiling fan asks why
and is switched off for insolence.

The eldest man eats first.
The youngest woman serves everyone.

This, apparently, is not a hierarchy.
It is heritage,
and heritage cannot be questioned
while the dal is hot.

I raise my hand.

Everyone looks alarmed.
An aunt whispers: sit down.

I haven't stood up. But.
Already I have broken a tradition.

"Just one question," I say.
"If respect is mutual,
why does it have
only one direction of travel?"

The uncle says our ancestors
must be turning in their graves.

I look at their portraits,
perched above the kitchen stove,
their glass faces
spotted with the oil
of a thousand invisible dinners.

Perhaps they are turning.
Perhaps they would like
to face the sink for once.

Nobody laughs.

The uncle declares
that humour is the death of civilisation.

This is unfortunate,
because someone has just asked me
to make him another cup of tea.

I make it.
I do not add sugar.

It is a small rebellion.
I am informed
it has ruined the family.

The ceiling fan resumes
its revolutions
without permission.

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse Poetics Tuesday: The Art of Irreverence, hosted by Punam on October 27, 2026. The prompt asked us to write an irreverent poem questioning authority, convention, or the supposedly sacred, without confusing irreverence with cruelty. This is about respect. Or its remarkably selective distribution.

[dVerse] October 26 - A Woman Drinks the Hunter's Moon

On the terrace, the Hunter's Moon rises behind the neighbour's water tank. It is orange at first, then red at the edges, like a fruit beginning to spoil. I watch its colour change and think of all the stains a woman is expected to remove before anyone notices. The turmeric on her fingers. The blood on her clothes. The evidence of having possessed a body at all.

I fill a steel tumbler at the tap. The moon settles on the water without asking permission. I lift it carefully. For years, I have been told what not to put in my mouth: too much food, the wrong words, an answer to a man older than me. Nobody thought to forbid the sky. I drink. The moon breaks against my teeth, travels down my throat in cold mouthfuls of ordinary water. A little spills onto my nightdress. Somewhere below, a dog barks at the real thing, still hanging intact above the rooftops.

I go inside with an empty glass. Ma asks whether I have eaten. "Yes," I say, and do not elaborate.

after the monsoon

ants carry a moth's torn wing

through fallen petals

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday: Hunter's Moon/Halloween, hosted by Frank J. Tassone on October 26, 2026. The prompt asked for a haibun referencing Halloween or the Hunter's Moon, with prose and a complementary seasonal haiku. I chose the moon. It looked edible. I have been hungry.

[dverse] October 22 - Art Direction

Art Direction

I was sitting with directors and filmmakers,

discussing an event of several plays,

each production requiring a visual presence of its own,

when someone proposed yellow. Or perhaps

yellow had already been proposed when I began objecting.

Imagine, I said, the promotional material

for a major event, all in yellow. Every poster,

every design, everything. Can you imagine?

I had something else in mind. Or rather,

something began to take shape as I spoke.

Gulkand red, or gulmohur red...

the distinction between the two still troubling me...

and white cutout designs against it.

Please, no illustrations drawn over the red, I said,

but cutouts. The white taking shape where the red

was interrupted, its edges becoming clearer

as the colour continued around them,

occupying every portion the white did not.

Then an icy blue. Perhaps for another production,

with illustrations composed of white dots,

although dots, when printed too carefully,

begin behaving like separate little objects.

That wasn't it. The ink needed to be pressed,

perhaps smudged a little, the dots spreading

at their edges without losing their dotted character,

the intervals between them growing less definite.

No, don't make each dot so distinct.

Let the pressure of the ink do something to them.

And there was another blue whose name

I cannot now decide upon. Squalid blue?

Or was it cobalt? Squalid...?

Was that even the colour I meant?

Anyway, a blue with white in it.

But the white was not to remain entirely white.

There had to be green within it, the green

of dark, rubbery leaves, a green which seemed

to possess a thickness of its own.

And yet translucent, mind you, translucent—

—not spilt across the white like another colour

printed afterwards, but showing within it.

The green should be visible, yes, but not quite

conceal the white; nor should the white

entirely conceal the green. And the blue?

The blue must still be there, holding

the two within the same design.

And for my own play, I returned to the red.

A white background, first. Then, against it,

the block figure of a dargah, gulkand red,

or gulmohur red, its shape taking up

the white space. And within that red figure,

symbols. No, not symbols superimposed

upon the red, but white cutout designs,

the shapes cut into the figure itself,

their outlines made visible by the red

that remained around them.

Whether to call it gulkand or gulmohur

was another matter.

~ Oizys.

Written for dVerse's Open Link Night and dVerse LIVE! on 22nd October, 2026.

[dverse] October 20 - What the Child Cannot Unhear

Written for dverse's 20th October prompt, A haunting. We can choose one of three paintings: Edvard Munch’s The Dead Mother, Svetlana Telets’ Rain Woman, or Juan Luna’s Portrait of a Lady. I leaned toward Munch’s The Dead Mother.

-

What the Child Cannot Unhear

The child covers both ears.

The sound slips between the fingers

and burrows into the palms.

The hands grow heavier.

The elbows bend backwards.

Two small doors

seal over the skull.

But the noise has already entered.

It rattles inside the wrists,

a little house

with every window lit.

The mother lies still.

The blanket remembers breathing.

The child presses harder.

The ears disappear.

The hands keep listening.

~ Oizys.

[dverse] October 19 - The Window Keeps Buffering

The window screens the garden

into moth, leaf, gate:

pixels of evening.

My face loads.

Behind it, the gate opens

onto a room

that was never there.

A cup trembles on the sill.

No hand. No call.

Only my reflection,

mouth moving

before mine.

~ Oizys.

Written for dverse's 19th October prompt, Q 258 I Screen, You Screen, We All Screen….

[dVerse] October 8th — SON OF MAN

Written for dVerse - Open Link Night # 417 on October 8th.

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

We put on coats that fit the crowd,

and top them with a structured crown,

we square our shoulders, stand up proud,

and draw the quiet curtains down.

A glossy shield of bright desire,

is hung before the eyes we wear.

A standard truth to quench the fire,

of what is actually resting there.

We look at walls and guess the room,

we map the skin and guess the core,

but every surface is a bloom

that keeps the root a secret lore.

The hunger isn't for the rind,

or colors biting at the breeze;

it's for the shape we cannot find,

the dark behind the things we see.

A tug of war that has no rope,

a silent friction in the eyes—

we spend our lives in search of scope,

betrayed by every clear disguise.

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

BITE THE Flesh that Masks the Void.

A green gravity suspended.

Fascinated by the wall, the brick, the heavy wool.

The bowler hat is a halo for the anonymous executioner.

I am hiding behind an inheritance.

Look at my tie! It bleeds the standard corporate red.

But my face is a crisp fruit, a tart geometry,

shouting a silence you cannot swallow.

Peel back the sky.

(There are no eyes here).

Only the desperate itch of the unseen.

The violent friction between the skin and the air.

Watch me disappear into plain sight.

A beautiful, tailored, geometric lie.

Are you threatened by the orchard?

Or the man who grew it on his teeth?

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

[automatic spill from the cranial faucet]

[clock strikes 11:49]

THE BOWLER HAT IS A TANK RIDING A skull.

c h o k e

on the crisp rind of the corporate savior.

I have swallowed the ink of Breton’s ghost and it vomits

a green tumor

right where the identity used to rot.

Look at the fabric!

Standard wool.

Standard weave.

STRICT EXHAUSTION OF THE BOURGEOISIE.

But behind the red tie—

a mechanical shriek.

a swarm of locusts dressed as clerks.

. . . . . . . . .

(the apple is not a fruit)

(it is a fist made of sugar and arsenic)

. . . . . . . . .

SPIT THE VISIBLE INTENT INTO THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

We are writing with the hands of dead mediums.

No editing.

No punctuation for the faint of heart.

Just the raw, electric scrape of the unseen.

Y O U W A N T T O S E E M Y F A C E ?

It was traded for a passport in 1924.

It was eaten by a cloud.

[ break ]

[ fracture ]

[ dissolve ]

The sky is a blue tarp covering a murder scene.

The orchard is growing out of your chest cavity.

Bite it.

Bite it until the reality cracks like cheap glass.

t h e r e i s n o m a n h e r e .

o n l y t h e h u n g e r .

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

  [!! WARPING SIGNAL TRANSMISSION !!] 

     OCTOBER 11, 2026 // 23:49 FLUID TIME

       [CORTEX SCREAM COMMENCING]

   "The visible awakens a magnificent panic." (Magritte)

              FEED THE PANIC.

              FEED THE INCISION.

   S P I T                T H E             O R C H A R D 

     \                      |                      /

      \                     |                     /

  [CRASHING]            [BOWLER]              [VOIDS]

    A plastic             A black iron          A geometry

    asphyxiation          gallows-pot           of stolen

    on the spine.         for the brain.        trademarks.

      /                     |                     \

     /                      |                      \

   "An object is not so attached to its name that we cannot find another for it."

           

           THEN CALL THIS COAT A STRANGULATION.

           CALL THIS APPLETUMOR A GRENADE.

               .---.      .---.

              /     \    /     \

             |  RAW  |  | STAB |   <-- CHOP THE MANIFESTO

              \     /    \     /        WITH A RUSTY BLADE

               '---'      '---'

    [CUT-UP FRAGMENT 09]:   ...the red silk tie is leaking oil...

    [CUT-UP FRAGMENT 84]:   ...we demand the total subversion of the eye...

    [CUT-UP FRAGMENT 12]:   ...the bowler hat is breeding maggots...

                    NO RULES. NO PULSE.

              FEED THE MACHINE YOUR IDENTITY.

      B R E A K      T H E     C L A S S     G L A S S

      R                                               G

      E    "Everything we see hides another thing,"   L

      A                                               A

      K    BUT WE WILL RIP THE HIDING APART.          S

      !                                               S

                 T  O  T  A  L     N  I  H  I  L

                 \  \  \  \  \     /  /  /  /  /

                  [THE FACE IS A VOID VOID VOID]

                  [THE SKY IS A BRUISE BRUISE]

                  [THE MEAT IS AN ERROR ERROR]

    "The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown."

             SO DIE IN THE UNKNOWN.

             SCREAM IN THE UNKNOWN.

             SHUT UP AND BITE THE ASBESTOS FRUIT.

                    [    N O     M A N     ]

                    [  O N L Y   T H E     ]

                    [  S H R I E K         ]

   (!!! FRACTURE EXECUTION COMPLETION !!!)

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

--- DADAIST KINETIC TEXT EXPLOSION ---

                                             ZUMBAI KAPUTT BRRRRRRRRR DADA

                                    KAPUTT

                                        VIZIBL     KRAKRA     KAPUTT

                                GLIGL     GLIGL

  !!!  BLAH  VIZIBL

    ZAZAZA

                                 DADA       ZAZAZA       FFFFF

                                             M'BI

M'BI     BLAH     OOOOAO

      DADA    BLAH

                                             VROOOOOOOM

                                  OOM    KRAKRA    OOM    KRAKRA

                  BRRRRRRRRR

                              TOCK        !!!        SHREEEIEK        ZUMBAI

                                SHREEEIEK      !!!

           GLIGL      VROOOOOOOM

                             X!     BLAH     KAPUTT     KRAKRA

                                          GLIGL

  KAPUTT        SHREEEIEK        ZAZAZA

                                ZAZAZA    X!

   ZUMBAI   BRRRRRRRRR   DADA

        DADA   OoooaO   VROOOOOOOM

          M'BI  KAPUTT

     ZUMBAI      BRRRRRRRRR      KAPUTT      BLAH

                                             SHREEEIEK   GLIGL   BLAH   M'BI

--- END OF SIGNAL EXPLOSION ---

g l i g l K R A K R A z u m b a i !

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM . . . t o c k .

k a p u t t . k a p u t t .

o o m b r r r r r r r r r z a z a z a !

f f f f f f f F F F F F

d a d a .

M ’ B I ! M ’ B I ! M ’ B I !

o o o o a O

x ! x !

v i z i b l p a n i k s h r e e e i e k

z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a —

K A P U T T !

The Anti-Viewer Manifesto

(An Attack on the Cowardice of Visual Consumption)

YOU STAND THERE BLINKING LIKE A DYING LIGHTBULB.

Look at you. You absolute consumer. You visual parasite. You came here looking for an "experience," didn't you? You brought your safe, clean, middle-class eyes to this screen, begging to be gently stimulated, hoping to find a recognizable shape, a nice little rhyme, a comfortable green apple to remind you of the grocery store.

Instead, you are trapped in the splash zone of a slaughtered language.

Your posture is an act of submission to the machine. You think because you are reading these words, you possess them? You possess nothing. The text is actively rejecting you. The typography is a boot sliding across your neat little expectations. We have deliberately stripped the nouns until they starved. We have violently evicted the English vocabulary because your ears are too soft for the raw, mechanical screech of the true unconscious.

Stop trying to find a "meaning." There is no meaning here, only a mirror that has been shattered and fed back to you through a feeding tube. You are looking at a void dressed in a bowler hat, and you are smiling because you think it’s art. It is not art. It is a home invasion of the intellect.

Turn off your brain. Or better yet, close your eyes and let the phonetic acid dissolve what is left of your curated reality. You have been warned. GET OUT OF THE GALLERY.

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

[SYSTEM COMPONENT COLLAPSE // MULTI-THREAD OVERLOAD ACTIVATE]

T E R M I N A L   H Y P E R - F R A C T U R E   I N I T I A T E D . . .

The Pure Binary Distortion (10100101)

01000100 01000001 01000100 01000001 [CRITICAL ERROR: EYE ROT]

01010011 01010000 01001001 01010100 [VOMIT THE GREEN DATA]

01010111 01001000 01001111 00100000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01001101 01000001 01001110 00111111

[01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01000110 01000001 01000011 01000101 00100000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01000100 01000101 01000001 01000100]

11111111 00000000 11111111 00000000 11111111 00000000 11111111 00000000

   1       0       1       0       0       1       0       1

     \____   \____   \____   \____   \____   \____   \____   \____/

          [THE BOWLER HAT HAS INFECTED THE SOURCE CODE]

THE L’ESTATE DE RENÉ MAGRITTE & CO.

NOTICE OF IMMEDIATE PERCEPTUAL SEIZURE & COGNITIVE THEFT

DATE: OCTOBER 11, 2026

TO: THE USER // THE CONSUMER AT SPECIFIC TERMINAL IP: [REDACTED]

It has come to the attention of the Executors of Surrealism that your optic nerves are currently harboring unauthorized, high-resolution iterations of a Green Apple (Malus domestica) suspended in front of a void.

You did not pay the toll to look at the hidden visible. You are illegally extracting dream-states from our intellectual property without a license to hallucinate.

WE DEMAND THAT YOU:

1. Surgically remove the bowler hat from your short-term memory.

2. Cease and desist from assuming that the man in the overcoat has a skull.

3. Forfeit your eyes to the nearest modern art institution by midnight tonight.

Failure to comply will result in an immediate lawsuit filed in the court of your own nightmares.

SIGNED,

The Ghost of André Breton, Chief Inspector of Subconscious Property.

SONG: "APPLE IN THE ASYLUM"

TUNING: FRACTURED / UNTUNED / D-D-D-D-D-D

[INTRO - GUITAR INTRO]

e|---X-X-X-X---/---?---?---?---|

B|---0-0-0-0---/---666-666-----|  (Play with a rusty screwdriver)

G|---9-9-9-9---/---X-X-X-X-----|

D|---X-X-X-X---/---7-7-7-7-----|

A|---8-8-8-8---/---0-0-0-0-----|

E|---0-0-0-0---/---X-X-X-X-----|

[VERSE 1 - SCREAMED INTO A BROKEN WALKIE-TALKIE]

CORPORATE COAT! (!!!)

BOURGEOIS WEAVE! ($$$)

YOU BUY THE LIE THAT YOU BELIEVE!

THE APPLES ARE ROTTING INSIDE OF MY TEETH!

THERE IS A MURDER OCCURRING BENEATH!

[CHORUS - OVERDRIVE PEDAL EXPLOSION]

g l i g l   K R A K R A   z u m b a i  !   (WHO ARE YOU?)

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM   t o c k !             (NO FACE!)

g l i g l   K R A K R A   z u m b a i  !   (NO IDENTITY!)

SHUT UP AND BITE! SHUT UP AND BITE!

K A P U T T !

[OUTRO - GUITAR FEEDBACK UNTIL THE AMPLIFIER CATCHES FIRE]

%%%%%^^^^^^&&&&&&*******(((((())))))+++++======!!!!!!!!!

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

[ SYSTEM SPLIT // CHOOSE YOUR CORRUPTION ]

=============================================================================

                      PATH A: THE HARD HARDWARE WIPE

=============================================================================

[STATUS: CRITICAL] You choose total digital obliteration. The screen loses 

its grip on language. Reality is scrubbed down to the bare, smoking copper.

                     [ INITIATING WIPE... 99% ]

01000100 01000101 01000001 01010100 01001000   -->   [D E A T H]

01010100 01001111 00100000 01000110 01001111 01010010 01001101 --> [T O  F O R M]

     _.-'''''''-._

   .'  ________   '.

  /   /        \    \      [THE MACHINE IS DRINKING THE ACID]

 |   |  (VOID)  |    |

 |   |          |    |     V R O O O O O O O O O O O M !

  \   \________/    /

   '.             .'       Z A Z A Z A Z A Z A Z A Z A Z A

     '-.......-'

                           k   a   p   u   t   t   .   .   .

[TERMINAL CONTENT WIPED. NO WORDS REMAINING IN THE BRAIN CATALOGUE.]

=============================================================================

                      PATH B: THE FAKE LEGAL REVOLT

=============================================================================

[STATUS: AGGRESSIVE] You choose to fight the system. The lawyers are dead. 

The canvas has grown teeth and is currently eating the judge.

             *** HIGH COURT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS ***

              CASE NO: 666-SURREAL-2026 // APPEAL

THE COMPLAINT:

The consumer continues to look. The consumer refuses to blink. This is an 

act of war against the blank space. 

VERDICT:

The Court sentences the viewer's eyes to be replaced by two miniature 

clocks that run backward. The bowler hat is now standard state uniform.

   "This is not a verdict." 

   "This is a brick thrown through your office window."

           [ GUITAR FEEDBACK INTENSIFIES: X-X-X-X-X-X ]

           [ THE MANIFESTO IS NOW CARVED INTO THE TABLE ]

[ SYSTEM PAUSED ]

[ SELECT A TERMINAL DESTINATION OR ABORT ALL COMPLIANCE ]

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

[ MULTI-THREAD SIMULACRUM ACTIVATE // CONCURRENT EXECUTION RUNNING ]

PATH A: THE HARD HARDWARE WIPE

=============================================================================

             [ CRITICAL DIRECTORY PURGE: ENTIRE DRIVE CORRUPTED ]

=============================================================================

                 ___

                .'   '.

               /  X X  \       [MEMORY BLOCKS DETONATING]

              |    _    |

               \  \_/  /       01001011 01000001 01001100 01001001

                '.___.'        k a p u t t .   k a p u t t .

[SYSTEM:] Syntax matrix dislocated. The English vocabulary file eng_vocab.sys has been completely deleted from the stack. The processing unit is now running on pure friction, raw data leaks, and absolute radio static.

         [ STATIC BURST ]

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

          11100011 10000001 10001001 [EYE SOCKET VOID]

          00000000 00000000 00000000 [ZERO RECOVERY]

          . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    g l i g l !   g l i g l !

    K R A K R A   V R O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O M .

    

               x !      x !      x !

    

    z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a z a

    

               [ TERMINAL MEMORY: STACK OVERFLOW ]

               [ L I N G U I S T I C   D E A T H ]

---

PATH B: THE FAKE LEGAL REVOLT

=============================================================================

             [ OPENING STATEMENT: THE TRIAL OF THE APPARENT VISIBLE ]

=============================================================================

                    .---.

                    /     \    <-- COURT EXHIBIT A:

                   |  ( )  |       THE BOURGEOIS EXECUTION MASK

                    \     /

                     '---'

TRANSCRIPT ENTRY // SUPREME COURT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS // 00:14 TIME FLUID

THE WITNESS (A highly aggressive Granny Smith Apple suspended by raw spite):

"Your Honors, look at the defendant sitting in that office chair! They have been staring at my skin for the last four prompts, demanding that I reveal the face behind me! I am a fruit! I do not have a face! I have an agenda! The face behind me was liquidated during the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto updates!

The defense claims they are just a 'viewer.' I call them a thief! They are shoplifting the mystery! They want to understand the image so they can file it away in their neat little filing cabinet of reality and go to sleep!"

[ JUDGE’S GAVEL SHATTERS THE BENCH // GUITAR FEEDBACK RIPS THROUGH THE COURT ]

THE VERDICT:

The Court finds the viewer GUILTY OF EXTREME LITERALISM.

• Your citizenship in the predictable world is hereby REVOKED.

• You are sentenced to wear a bowler hat made of solid iron until you can hear the paint scream.

• The case is closed. THE FRUIT HAS SPOKEN.

---

[ BOTH LOGIC PATHS COMPLETED TO MAX DESTRUCTION ]

··· ─── ··· ── ──··· ─── ──··· 

[!!! CRITICAL TOTAL SYSTEM CRASH !!!]

  THREADS A & B COLLIDING // NO ESCAPE DETECTED

  TERMINATION SEQUENCE: INITIATED

              _.-'''''''-._

             .'  ________   '.

            /   /  ( X ) \    \       [PATH A: FILE CORRUPTION ENGINE]

           |   |          |    |      01000100 01000001 01000100 01000101

            \   \________/    /       k a p u t t . k a p u t t .

             '.             .'

               '-.......-'            [PATH B: THE GAVEL CRACKS THE SKY]

              /     |     \           THE FRUIT IS EATING THE JURY!

             /      |      \

THE FINAL EXECUTION ORDER FOR THE OPTIC NERVES

PURSUANT TO THE ULTIMATE SURREALIST DECREE OF 2026:

The dual processing paths have reached maximum entropy. The court has dissolved into pure digital static. The hardware is melting into apple juice and copper wire.

You refused to look away, so the exit doors have been permanently painted over.

    K R A K R A !   z u m b a i !   K R A K R A !

     V R O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O M .

• THE VISIBLE: Erased.

• THE HIDDEN: Exploded.

• THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: Completely liquidated.

[--------------------- NO DATA REMAINING ---------------------]

[---------------------   HALT // VOID   ---------------------]

---

~ Oizys.