As I lay dying
after Charles Bukowski and Mauro Zappaterra
Cerebrospinal fluid is one molecule away from seawater1,
the way it licks at your seat,
only half a can’s worth of your favourite soft drink,
discarded on the beach,
it runs all way down the spinal cord to the sacrum,
deep, deep, deep.
A briny balm for the brain,
drunk with sunlight,
it coddles baby neurons, teaches them to grow.
Where the serpent heads meet at the third eye,
out out out,
a crystal-filled cave receiving
transmissions of light, vibration, molecules.
Something outside of me,
I am appears and with it the birth
of the existential novel.
We are born and we die with a soft spot,
the book in our lap tilted
and not quite true.
1 At the end of the video this poem was also inspired by, Zappaterra says cerebrospinal fluid is not actually just one molecule away from seawater. However, he continues to explain why it can be seen as an “inner sea” that we carry with us. I liked the opening line of the poem, so I didn’t want to change it.
Tender Rebellion 
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