Rhys Feeney
not great not terrible
it has become hard to hide the fact
tht i am secretly a poorly-designed nuclear reactor
when cauliflower-related meltdowns
end with me chernobyling onto the unswept floor
trust me
i thought i was doing everything right
regulating myself like the US pork industry
holding pencil-graphite control rods tight in my hands
feeling the warmth of natural decay
i kno this is melodramatic
i’d rather be a 5pt limited time television event w/ a fuck-off budget
instead i am soundtracked by the
gerbil sounds i make when i bite my nails
i know it is a problem but i keep doing it anyway
much like the systematic overuse of antibiotics
i have made a living out of pretending to be an adult
going to work / cooking mushrooms in margarine
but rly u r 2 steps behind
smiling ur little hero of the soviet union smile
i know it’s problematic to explain myself in metaphor
but my therapists always compliment my analogies
well i might as well go there
i am not rly an RBMK reactor
i am a concentrated animal feeding operation
rapidly producing a massive amount of shit
tht is seeping into the groundwater
it’s a semantic difference i kno
it amazes me something so horrible can go on & everyone hates it
but still everyone irons their underwear
like those children who
after jamie oliver showed them how chicken nuggets were made
all still put their hands up to eat them
like the dairy industry to the GDP
i have a brain tht produces a disproportionate amount of suffering
while not substantially contributing to my improvement as a whole
i have a brain w/ thoughts lined up in cages
eating the unnatural food in front of me
a life tht i need medication to live
a life tht is a process of living until 25 then dying
getting used to the violence of watching the trucks
driving up the gorge to taylor preston w/ their voiceless eyes
w/o being able to mutter an apology
/trans/i/ent/ /stress/-/re/lat/ed/ /pa/ra/noid/ /i/de/a/tion/ /or/ /se/ve/re/ /dis/soc/i/a/tive/ /symp/toms/
DSM-5 301.83 (F60. 31)
it’s a childhood memory: a coat hanging in the static dark
becomes a person watching you sleep followed by
the usual fear of turning on the light fear of opening eyes
now rebooted with improved audio footsteps
fingernail snapping people calling from the other room
when there are no people in the other room stretching even
to fairy tales: inexplicit fear of crooked trees at dusk
don’t even mention the pretentious narrative structure
memories that are dreams dreams that are implanted
i promised myself i’d stop mining my mental health for poems
but my partner has been replaced by an actor
i’m living in my own little post-truth era i never shoulda watched that
ed snowden doco so ok our phones are listening to us
& i’ve never read an eula if i jumped off a building tomorrow
i’d leave a dysfunctional family of shadow profiles
tape up the webcam take down the mirrors
when i zoom with my family how do i know it isn’t a deepfake
a text to a friend: at what point do you seek help?
from which frame of reference can you tell if this is getting worse
the panic is growing like an electoral campaign
on the far-right facebook pages they say the storm is coming
at school i bump into students constructing makeshift water filters
a text to a friend: maybe we should relocate
to a doomstead? i feel like i am losing
touch with the world it’s losing touch with me if you think about
committing one or two small acts of ecoterrorism does that make
you a danger to yourself & to others? tipping points pass in the night
the woman in my wardrobe watches as i breathe in shallower
& shallower sinking into the bed until
i am taking in only the bare minimum of oxygen until
i am nothing but a punctured lung wheezing: please don’t hurt me
please don’t hurt me please don’t hurt me
decoherence
i haven’t had a day off in ten weeks &
i’m starting to understand:
a superposition is both a particle & a wave
that each morning when i wake up in the half light
& climb the path with tired legs
there is no wavefunction collapse
all possible universes exist
that once a upon a time a fish
crawled onto land & now
dominos fall + fall
versions of myself splinter:
a photon hits a slit a photon hits a slit a photon hits a slit
a body stops & listens to birdsong a body rushes into the car a body skips breakfast
goes to work goes to work goes to work
a body misses lunch a body attends an online meeting a body heaves with tears
goes home goes home goes home
a body signs a petition a body reads a food label a body recycles beer bottles
sinks a little deeper sinks a little deeper sinks a little deeper
a body eats baked beans for dinner a body works until 10pm a body takes too many mood stabilizers
in a world with no ethical consumption no ethical consumption no ethical consumption
a body online shops a body goes to bed at 7pm a body take part in professional development
cells break down cells break down cells break down
a body looks at memes a body dreams of a body a body practices sleep hygiene
the world dies a little the world dies a little the world dies a little
a photon is a particle a photon is a wave a photon is in superposition
a body labours a body labours a body labours
Rhys Feeney lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. You can buy his debut chapbook, ‘soyboy’, as part of AUP New Poets 7.
Please note that due to its formatting, ‘decoherence’ is best viewed on a tablet or computer.