The Listener by S.L. Walsh

The Listener

You are sitting alone, somewhere, tuning in

to the primary auditory cortex

decoding the context of

vibrational oscillations from

these vocal strings you call Speaker.

You meditate on your idiosyncrasies

the way You digest smarties

the way your front layer iris appears

69, 75, 27, rgb in daylight, your

hyperhidrosis from the line of head to

girdle of venus, the way your digits slip

across the steering wheel in thioalcohols.

your organs knot, You squirm

at the thought of turning a key

You don’t know how you got here

or whether you ought to follow Birds

or move with the breeze,

You call your skin Chicken,

pluck keratin from the seed

You believe these are what make You

unique, a character consumed by The Method

Actor, the way You perform your

gender, the way You say your name

with your lisp and your lip

stick liner. the way You were raised into

The Researcher, pushing up their

glasses, squinting with furrowed brows

in pursuit of the “truest” self-

conception, They say

You are twenty-

something, but sometimes You are

seven, sometimes You are

ten, how can there be only one when

your telomeres tell tales of years You didn’t have

and You left paper copy trails all along your path

You left skin husks as you slithered, littering the trail

your vertebrae ache, You don't want to go

back, You disown That Person, that strange invertebrate

You disown those mistakes, change your name, your legs

buckle over the treadmill which keeps its steady pace

as your microfibre tissue breaks down; You change

again. who are You?

Who is picking ink off the page

Who is the one making mental

recordings, revelations over raspy

dictation, what do You see?

are your eyes like hazel or moss in these rays

can You keep up at the speed of light before

someone else is listening

before your next phase?