"When We Blinked Ourselves Into Existence" by Mathieu Paul

Mathieu Paul was one of three featured readers at Duff's on September 26.

The next reading, Monday, October 31, will be a very special "Howl"-O-Ween Celebration." Admission is free, and the •chance operations• microphone is open to all attendees. We invite you to come in literal and or figurative costume as your favorite poet or poetic character.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Admission is FREE.

When We Blinked Ourselves Into Existence

Then it was, and we stopped to stare at our hand. Not a goddamn thing's been working, 'cept I have been, too long hours cutting up my fingers stinging with salt or solvent, all of it covered in spiders and the such, but alls I am thinking about is love and lust and lunch. So I sit to have a smoke and stare at my hands again. Then I am thinking about God. Goddamn. What next? Do I have to hole up in some hostel or heaven forbid a fucking hospital holding nothing but a Bible? I will spread the gospel standing in Times Square, speaking only ever with strangers in the dark of night, seeking to be saved, I swear, I just need to know if that is the direction I should follow….

But then I found God at the bottom of the bottle and I awoke wearing a collar, so now on the darkest of nights down the darkest alleys you can hear me holler:
"Onward with our journey!"

That is the cry of a man devout in his destiny pressing on arrogantly, knowing nothing but love. I would trade it all, 'twas only ever for her anyway, eternally, and the Buddha bit his lip.

-- Mathieu Paul