Wing wide I soar, wider than your night is dark, and darker than the
secret in your heart, I am…
Despair
I am. It started with an end, of course. Alpha and Omega. The end of
my lover. A New Year's Eve extravaganza. An end I had predicted in an
epic, a poetic drama, a patchwork quilt of photographic slaughter,
scanned and hung on hooks behind me, as I read this to you now. New
Year's Day, house lights dimmed, a soundtrack of sirens, police
questioning, forensic dusting, fingerprints stolen and various items
recovered from the scene. A man is helping the police with their
enquiries.
Backstage I'm pacing the dimensions of a cell, regurgitating
lines I've rehearsed too many times without a hint of feeling. I have
the right to remain silent, but it's sight I'd rather lose, and the
sense of smell. He haunts me. First His feet, hanging there above me,
the size of newborn babies, cupped within my hands. A milky sweetness,
like unearned kindness, reaches for my stomach and curdles its way to
my heart. I am imprisoned, but the bars let in the visions, and the
visions let in the night.
Is it a birth or a death I am celebrating?
He's against a timber shank, against defiant embers, against a
charcoal sky, awaiting morning stars. And wise men came there none,
and shepherds were there less, and mourning wore me well – a great
cloak of mourning, that I would pun with noon and night were I not too
silent, too swollen, too porous to risk revealing rainbows by
admitting to the light. My statement's incoherent, my mental state
uncertain, and my whereabouts at the time of death are based on a
coroner's estimation. White against the grain, His flesh is a fabulous
ash. But where did he go?
I have arranged a slash of blood, a little livener, to splash
across the screen, as the out-manoeuvred wipers flail rhythmically and
miserably to keep the windscreen clean. I'm heading for Hell knows
where - following the scent of the lone violin, the twisted gut of
original string - and I'm driving without due care or attention. One
too many Bloody Marys, one too few nights in with the good Book. He
read this before He left me. I have performed this before Him. He is
there in black and white, and here, indicates heart, in wide-screen
Technicolour. When the blood's on the inside, and the brain's on the
outside, it's time to draw a line. I am Vincent and I am guilty.
Gift-wrapped forgiveness and promises sealed with sandals are the
best I can offer. Oh I've read up on the customs of the day -
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The law demands more, but allows us
less – so we ignore the law and live our lives outside it. And the
church lags the law, lost in the pick-n-mix of shame and sin, more
devoted to the candle than the flame, more intent on unity than
trinity. I am Vincent and I am innocent and He is the same.
His flesh - bleached by the acidic flash of each photograph - did
my bidding, eased my living, and became my art. A road-kill rabbit
never saw it coming, and too shocked to feel a thing, died with
dandelion salad firmly on the brain. Foot to the floor, I ignore the
shadows on the wall, the fading meek chorus, and glance in the mirror
at the face of a man I wouldn't leave in the room with my own arse,
never mind small children. He is dead. He saw it coming. And I lined
up death with a credit card, then licked it clean.
New Year's Eve, we want to see it out in style. So we snort and
swill, pop a pill, double-bump, and move onto the heavy stuff. He taps
all hope from a syringe, squirts a dirty jet onto my tongue, then
strokes my vein in tender admiration. A kiss, delicious with
anticipation and worth every piece of silver, fuses us. I bite a hiss
in half as he needles in - release - and oh fuck this is not the usual
stuff… but before I can warn Him - woof! Are you sitting
uncomfortably? Good. Curtain up. Let's begin.
