Work Text:
orogenesis, orogeny - orogenesis is the formation of mountains (Greek oros) and orogeny is the process by which mountains are formed.
i.
i never learned how to metabolize ambition & appetite the way i know
how to metabolize pain pills— my kidneys are experts in filtration, things
pass through like osmosis; passive diffusion
(because i’ve taken two hydrocodones and my jaw still hurts)— everything except for the
infinite transgressions that mount into fury, the boundless daydreams that
need to bleed through my skin, need to seep out, become tangible—
but they get stuck in the base
of my esophagus like bile (except i have
emetophobia and don’t
know how to send it to exile).
my skin is so much tougher than
i ever gave it credit for: miles and miles
thick like continental crust (with an average thickness
of 35 kilometers, wowee!), ancient rock older than atmospheric
oxygen, than air itself: my skin is a suit of
armor all on its own— i refuse
to subduct when i collide
with more dense plates,
refuse to return to the mantle
to be melted and reformed.
my life is a study in mountain building: i always come out on top.
[would it be better to subduct? to give
into the cycle; to let myself collapse
in heat and pressure and become
something new? to stop letting those mafic
olivines claw their way into my instabilities?
the laws of plate tectonics say otherwise.]
ii.
blue/black bruised knuckles are cyclical
like flu season sickness; split lips
have mom worried that i was fighting again, but
the war i waged was only
against my own gnashing
teeth; punches
only thrown
at my own ill-constructed barriers—
(why does my mouth insist on opening?)
bile must come out eventually: no matter
how hard i fight it.
iii.
people will tell you to never let anything
wriggle its way beneath your skin: but
the endless pins and needles that pricked
and prodded are what uplifted me; i could have
dug a grave out of ceaseless provocations— but
i instead erected an Everest, an Olympus:
my life is a study in mountain building.
silicate and aluminum are a dime a dozen, the most abundant: we all
are composed of nothing extraordinary,
and yet: Michelangelo chiseled gods from the limestone marble
he found beneath his feet—
i’ve been in more head-on collisions
than i can count; high-density basaltic
oceanic crust has pried its way
beneath my skin, and i let it: because
all it does is push me to
greater elevations; because i always
come out on top.
i’m a head taller than
everyone else— in spirit
if not in body— for a reason.
i never subduct.
iv.
no one gets to look
at me and rightfully
call me a coward. you can
never look at me and say
the bruised knuckles
were for nothing.
no one gets to look down
on me— on you.
my life is a study in mountain building.
i’m miles and miles above
sea level, because density bears
greater consequence than height— because plate tectonics dictates that i rise.
v.
so let the mafic minerals, the basalts, and the
gabbros poke and prod and pry: let them get
under your skin; they’ve never heard of isostasy,
they know nothing about buoyancy— so let them collide
into you, allow them to hit you if
they dare. you’ll be just fine: you never subduct.
your life is a study in mountain building— and i look forward to craning my neck upwards, someday.