Picture this. A swarm of mosquitos’ plummet into blue light. Rodents infesting blackened corners scatter as those creatures with fanged molars salivate over faecal matter. Yet in the furthest crevice, lies that speck of reflection. it shimmers like a glistening pool. Now see that maturing man, endlessly gaunt. he sinks his loose teeth into the skin of an egg. tears, chews, swallows, and drinks. His wrinkled lips, lined with yolk, are wiped as the reflection guides his ancient feet. Now he comes to a bedward crawl, his contentment only ephemeral as he reaches the pool of truth.

An asymmetrical ugliness greets him. he shudders. He frantically wraps his withering face in a fine cloth, acidic tears collapse its formation.

Now see how he falls. Falls into the ballroom of the universe? where the incessant spin of the sun and moon taunts him, mocks him. They dance buoyantly, they laugh joyfully. The man is complicit. The man is ageing. The mosquitoes, rodents and creatures feel not a thing, those clocks to not belittle them, their youth does not stale. The man’s youth stales. he is older than ever before. His blue eyes, encroached by wrinkles, are no comfort as the sharp roundness of the clock burns and lacerates.

Now he lies on the dusty rings of Saturn, lulled to sleep by celestial lullabies. He dreams of a fresh-faced man waltzing through the diamond chandeliers of the night.

Now his drooping eyes peel open, bearing witness to the sly smiles that dance across clean lips and he thinks to himself are they true? or false? or fabricated? Do they cringe at their reflections? Do they plummet into the kaleidoscope of oils, retinoids, and voids of Botox? could he fix himself with these things? Could he be young and beautiful once again? Fresh off the womb?

Now see how this man unfurls himself, he rises, he investigates the pool once again. New, he is. The waves of time retract, revealing a rosebud of dew. He becomes the glistening pool. he becomes the universe. Those eyelids no longer droop, his bones no longer ripen.

He dances buoyantly, he laughs joyfully with the sun and moon. They are one and the same. The man now pities those poor earth dwelling beasts.

Now see how he climbs? ascends the swirling golden staircase into the crux of the earth. He is human again, embraced by his kindred species. He sits for coffee. he ages.

He makes the swirling drink; he pours the sugar and milk. Yet, as he pours the scalding liquid it discovers his wrinkled hands. They boil and blister, likened to a slab of perishing leather.

Still pouring now, he labels himself the fool. the fool that wished for humanness once again. The fool that became bored of his aged identity. He had been the rivers, the deserts, the sun, the moon, the universe. he had been the youth.

Now see the man weep, see the man fall to his knees. For amongst all that space and absence of dread, he prospered.

Now see him shackled to the lawn chair? Burning and burning. his wrinkles fester like the plague.

He screams for the oils; he screams for the retinoids. He screams for the tiny needles that penetrate.

He now descends the golden staircase. falling back into the ballroom.

he crawls and scuttles, sits by the black hole.

He speaks and he says

“I wish to finish my drink”

what ever can we make of him?