paralipsis

You spot him at a quaint and vacant library in Brooklyn. His lips pull in a sip of hot java. His lips murmur a stint of insignificant syntax. All you can think of: brinks of his mouth, a trapdoor to an unknown abyss.

You find his lips submit to a fault of always wanting Valium to dull angst of living in scrip; this paradoxical loop has spun him on many occasions. Says his lips panic at any thought of swallowing, for this act holds a part in our cyclical transit of victuals into mouth and out bottom – a swallow starts it.

You cannot stop his words. His lips pour out things no man can claim. His lips imprison no words but pluck fastidiously from his mind a particular way to say things. His words show a notion that almost drops but stops abruptly in an instant. Fat throbs of flow thrust upon our tympanums, as a hand would hit a drum. Words you typically wouldn’t stop to touch. Usually, you’d vanish as quickly as a lightning blink, but absconding from this is not an option. Launch of his words is so vigorous you cannot stay afloat. You drown in his paralipsis. You swallow all sounds and cannot slip away. It is in air and his wits put it out for all to draw in. Your mind cannot stop thinking of his lips. His lips, in your hourly thoughts, will not stop splitting but will not abandon you. Clock ticks. Hours pass.

Curtains of hair hang down on his lips as if not touching is not an option.
No knowing in not touching. You go out on a limb and put a hand toward him.

You can physically climb around boundary rims of his smirk – you think of following all topics of his cracks in and out, up and down. You do not touch, not so soon. Within, you skim his mouth with a touch so soft, if it wasn’t imaginary, still not a solitary flinch from him. His hands: rough but subtly loving. Mountains of rock affix palm to thumb and four additional digits. Both hands grasp.

“Both hands, now apply both hands to this instant. That’s it – now nothing is missing.” You submit & twist with him, splicing your body into his. Still, you think it slightly vacant as if a bit is missing. A film of cryptic sawdust forms down along his nails. His hand follows along a nook in your grin.

“Who sold this tour to us?” you say to him. “Why don’t you ask what kind of tour is going to follow this?” No solution from his lips. What is missing in your mind is a functional plan out of his sultry, pulpy skin. His lips.



Clammy hands touch his lips. You, afraid of his obscurity, flinch at his kiss.

What had initially drawn your focus to him was this: his inconspicuous lips, in a caught-off-guard-kiss kind of way. But his lips do not kiss. His lips brush up against, committing an artful skim against your lips without any prior approval. No kiss actually occurs in knowing a man such as him – just mixing. His lips spark in a distracting scoop-you-up sort of glint. You think about such lust.

A sharp sting of an abrupt touch on your sun-burnt back prompts a thought of what his lips last said to you: “Narcotic consumption will not abolish what haunts my mind. I am only soporifically functioning. It is you. My drug-fix is you. You are my anti-narcotic. Too bad it will not last. With you so far away I can’t…” At that, a click. And you couldn’t catch wind of any additional words. A finish you did not think would occur.

His lips now inaudibly blurry: just a sound of past, brimming with disturbing thoughts of addiction. Addiction to pills (or a habit of swallowing thoughts as if pills) and his fixation with constant withdrawal…

You cannot think of what is missing from him.
What is missing from his lips?
What addiction afflicts him?
Possibly, it is his compulsion to avoid. Obligatory tasks daunt him. Twisting his way out by simplifying what his lips swallow but also what his lips spout out. Subtracting a symbol and substituting with synonymous words is his lip-tripping fix. No difficulty with S’s; his lisp is not with consonants. It occurs within a contrasting sound-domain: a yawning configuration of our vocal tract forms this sound. It is fifth. “Just avoid it” is his solution.

Avoid.

Now conscious of it, you can fathom what splits into him: a void in his lips.