Right now what I crave is a menthol and a chemical peel. A tanning session. Electrolysis. Dermabrasion. My teeth capped. Liposuction. Calf implants. Botox. A pig’s valve implanted in my heart. Angioplasty. The only reason I’m dictating all of this into a machine is so I’m sure that I’ll be listened to and heard properly. Maybe even seen. Posthumous pictures. Those lovely little black and whites of happy families standing in front of the Grand Canyon. Mount Rushmore. Some ocean. An old-fashioned diner on route 66. Maybe I’ll be seen (the reason for the cravings). There’s an odd chance. Right now my Television Q Score, if I were to be on television, is likely 0. I am ugly. I have dark circles under my eyes. The flesh on the face pulls down. I smoke. I cannot sleep. But I want to be changed. I’ll have wanted to, anyway. I’ll say I won’t, but I’ll want to, privately. It all counts toward something. It all counts toward the Q-score.
Adored.
A dord.
It has nothing to do with altruism, this record I’m leaving here. Nothing has anything to do with unselfish regard or devotion to others. The key to salvation is how much attention you get. You realize that there’s no point in doing anything if no one is watching. You realize that if there’d been a low turnout at the crucifixion, they’d have rescheduled. You realize that if Jesus Christ had died in a hole, or some shit prison with no witnesses or no one there to mourn or torture Him, we wouldn’t be saved.
“I am as God created me. I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His own.”
But throw these sentences at the mirror every day and see what happens. If you’re not beamed out live over microwaves, it doesn’t count. The glass shatters. Seven years of bad luck.
Seven years of listening to yourself.
Or decades.
Whichever. No one listens. No one bows. No one hyperventilates at your words. No one is healed. It doesn’t count.
The mirror.
Reminds me of concave reminds me of converging reminds me of gorging.
Nobody wants to worship a fat messiah. Nobody wants to see an extra thirty pounds draped around your waist while you’re preaching. Have you ever seen a fat Jesus?
How I feel on this machine, running endless miles and sweating off seven-hundred and fifty-three calories per hour, is like a ladder wrapped in nylon stockings under a giant heat lamp. Under duress, the revelations come at you from obtuse directions. You’re the tree falling in the forest and nobody gives a shit about it, because nobody sees it. You’re the moon pie melting in the microwave oven. You’re a nobody because nobody’s watching you. These are the truths that swarm inside of you, running at nine miles per hour on a conveyer belt. And it’s faux philosophy, Chinese food enlightenment, because you know that fifteen minutes after your head clears, you’ll have forgotten it all.
