Please enjoy.
Banjo or Freakout - "Upside Down"
I am an angel of anticipation, a lick, a touch, a twist and tickle just before—and I will appear to you once you choose, finally choose choose choose that one thing that you need, that product, that got to have—the what you want—and act now please, I’m a limited offer and once you’ve got me you won’t get me get me, you just get me once and
then nobody’s gonna hear me after that, after that I’m gone and dead and all you’ll do is remember me, remember what I might have felt like, even though, well, did you catch that breeze? Did I see that ghost?
Oh no, I don’t mean to confuse you, even though I will will will be your last major confusion, or you’ll call me, if you live after I come down, after my face sees your face—call me demon! Chaos! You’ll call me these things, maybe. I fell upon your father too and your mother cried as she saw me—I don’t think you remember this, but you were there too and you didn’t say a word as I licked his face, touched his tongue and he breathed—whaah!
Mmmm, your mom called me a demon, but you will have better sense, will you?
The night you were conceived I hovered over your father and mother as they lay naked and your mother said what was that and your father said what was what and your mother said I Think I Just Heard The Wind Say The Name of A Child Not Yet Born And I Think That This Name Was My Name And I Think That The Wind Chided Me With A Soft Word I Don’t
Understand, A Soft Word I Think Means—NO! And that was me speaking to your mother and that was you whose name I whispered, whose name is your mother’s name and is also a soft word that might mean NO!
Your father turned away in the bed and did not say anything; his eyelids were heavy, his brain meddled—sex made him sleepy. Regret, regret, Regret, regret. Your mother never knew me—I blew a wind up and down her skin, sweaty skin, disappointed skin, sticky above covers, hoping for the fan to blow off that sex—she loved that man, but did she love that man?—and then she was clear, in the clear, my clear, ready, and she felt my wind course in vessels, tubularies, transit systems, blood throats—she shuddered, shuddered hard, anxiously, and convulsions, convulsions, enough to wake your daddy—What Is Wrong—and then she slept hard, and she saw you in her dreams, though we all know that is impossible you can’t see the face of a boy you’ve never met, not even in a dream?
She doesn’t remember that dream because she never wrote it down, but this is what it was: You and Mom were standing on a red sofa. A lizard the size of Manhattan came by to ask for some chowder. Mom said “We don’t got no chowdah, come back, come back…” and You said “We only got bricks of mud,” and then you handed the lizard a brick of mud and then the lizard ate both Mom and You and when you guys were in the belly, which wasn’t scary at all but was actually kind of like a party because everyone Mom ever knew was there even her principal from eighth grade and Mom smiled and looked at You and she said, “Do you have any tuna fish sandwiches?”
And then she was pregnant, full and full, and she considered getting rid of you but in the end she figured she could raise a kid and your father was a good guy—really, we mean this—and she thought things could go well. She felt good that day. Good days make people confident. And bad days, of course, they make people. You were born on a bad day.
I am at your doorstep now. I distracted you so that you wouldn’t notice me here, coming closer. I meant nothing by it. I hope you know that. Distractions make this easier. Easier. Easier. Easy, easy, now, breathe while breath is there because when this starts! Knock knock knock hello is anybody home because I will wait until you are home I have all the time in the world. Open the door it isn’t polite to leave me waiting open the door and say hello and touch my hand and I will touch my hand and touch my hand and shake my hand and you know that feeling and you’ve had sex before but this isn’t like that and you’ve played football before and this isn’t like that and hold my hand hold it for the first time ever, a lick, a tickle, a breath up and down, almost almost, almost, the prayers have been answered I have come I came I am here to say hello just hello just let you have what I want to give you what you want even though you don’t know you want it—You don’t have time to say What the Fuck Was That but if you did you would say it in pain, wouldn’t you, even though, if—let’s be honest here this isn’t pain, this is something entirely different, this is globalization this is market profit share this is over the counter this is brains in your hand oh god brains all over and my blood is staining my shirt I will have to get it cleaned out and oh my god oh my god!
I will memorialize you.
I will say all those things you could not.
I am forever, and I will carry on, keep on, say it for you: What the Fuck Was That?
I will say it in pain, like you wanted.
Hello there. My name is Devon.
