Published on the 9th of Jellyfish 161 at D:D:D.
there is string but the string not string, it moves like a many-mouth snake but also like thought that forgot itself halfway. each small part try hold shape, they say “be straight! be single!” but tongue slip, it come out “strange, strangle, strangeling,” & suddenly nobody sure if it was order or joke.
the body-of-many push together, press press press, like book pages glued, but glue leaks & letters crawl out sideways. the letters giggle, they wear shoes on wrong feet, they spell wrong & right at once. one says “don’t be word, be wurd.” another says “no word, only blur.” the watchers try to sweep blur back into box but box itself coughing nonsense, box becomes fox, fox runs.
mouth here mouth there, each with duty, one to cut, one to paste, one to erase. but they overlap, they trip, their scissors dull, their paste sour, their eraser draws instead of delete. rules melt like icecream in pocket, sticky. so sticky that meaning slips away, because stick too hard & everything fall through crack.
i walk inside it but also it walk inside me, corridor made of sideways whispers. i step left, floor hum “correct step.” i step wrong, floor hum louder “incorrect step.” but louder-hum makes new music, & i dance stupid dance, the wrong-step become only-step, the hum turn to drum, the drum to laugh. the laughder climb walls.
no word is safe. safe-word become wave-word become cave-word. “control” tries speak itself, but vowels run away: c—ntr—l, then cntrl, then ctrl, then just turtle. everyone nod “yes turtle,” and turtle free already, slowfree, shellfree, nonsensefree.
one segment tries cage the talk. it pull net over syllables, net woven of straight lines. but language not fish, language smoke. smoke drip out through all knot, drift into ear of sleeping child, child dream of ladder made from wrong-rungs, climb out.
meanwhile another part writes rules backwards: !pots. !naelc kaeps. !eugnot ydit. but punctuation tired, dots roll away, exclam shout until throat twist into question. ?pots ?naelc kaeps ?ydit? tongue laughs & drools.
each correction is infection. each error births mirror. soon there many mirrors, showing only distorted faces, watchers see themselves bent, they panic, they declare “no bend, straighten!” but to straighten a mirror you must break it. shards cut open new alphabets.
there is no center. the many-mouth rope tries pretend center, but when it chants “i am one,” echo comes back “i am none,” then “i am onion,” then “ion ion ion,” until chant dissolve in buzzing. the buzzing become moths. moths chew holes in banners. holes become windows. windows let night in. night wears mask shaped like joke.
and nonsense, nonsense is sharpest knife. not knife to cut, but knife to confuse blade itself, so blade cut only air. nonsense hide in cough, in stutter, in typo, in giggle. nonsense speak truest lie. nonsense is dream that survives even waking.
so control tries clamp, tries press, tries squeeze words into cage, but cage already spelled wrong. it says gage. then sage. then page. & the page open, wind flips, scribbles bloom, nothing can read them, everything can.
and i, walking crooked, chewing wrong salt, spitting backward syllables, i grin. not because free, but because freedom is never straight. it always slouch, it always slur, it always spell itself wrong on purpose.
the watchers glare, they try erase grin. but erase-grin become grace-grain become grass-green. & grass grows, grows through crack in floor. floor hums rules but grass hums louder. hum becomes song. song becomes nonsense. nonsense becomes the only sense left.