St Teresa In Ecstasy

if after armageddon you lived alone in the hagia sophia with enough mdma to last you a hundred years
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if beauty has to commit murder to become sublime
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if the sublime makes rock slack, if rock slackens
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if you rubbed the statue with dirt to fool the estimators
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if rubbing dirt on art makes the dirt art not the other way around
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if the face reminds you of your first time, or all your first times
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if herakles died in poison pools of red pleasure
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if as he died his ecstasy slackened around him
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if the first time a hole was poked through the membrane between your soul and body you could feel it rushing out pure soul decongregating in your bloodstream steaming off the tips of your nerves
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if animals only see the internet as a flickering
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if animals only see the face flicker ecstatic then flicker slack
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if the internet gives you a rabbit’s heartbeat, faint and fast, like mrs lockwood likes to say
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if you would kindly lift the face back up
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and who are you, to think that you could?
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if murder has to commit beauty to avoid a life sentence
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if the jarring zoom of a camera is the only difference between ecstasy and terror
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if sex peaks beautifully in the mirror but terribly in the window
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if at that peak you become a self that touches all edges, like my neighbor david likes to say

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but if,
for you,
sex peaks beautifully in the window but terribly in the mirror,
then you must be franz schubert, dying of syphilis, dying between the notes of your last andantino
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if you are franz schubert dying,
the servants are wearing masks of pure black and pouring dreamliquid for everyone
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if you are not dying,
then I was mistaken about you being schubert and upon consideration of all available clues you are probably porpentine, my librarian
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if you are porpentine, my librarian,
then I’m so delighted that suddenly the moon is full and murakami kisses jodorowski and salvador dali invites asimov’s daughter to the arcade
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if suddenly the moon is full and murakami kisses jodorowski and salvador dali invites asimov’s daughter to the arcade,
then you have probably figured out that my other references are hiding somewhere around this dark museum, nearby, in wait, furtive, mrs lockwood up on the stonework near the ceiling, the rim of franz’s face peeking around the edge of that pillar, herakles’ elbow jutting out from a shadowed corner, my neighbor david and I crouched among the fossils
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if you have spotted all of us,
then we may as well come out now, my neighbor david and mrs lockwood and franz and herakles and I, to meet murakami and jodorowski and dali and asimov’s daughter, and you
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if we are finally all together now,
then we can lay out our sleeping bags here in the museum’s diorama wing, how about in front of the ibexes
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if we have laid out our sleeping bags in front of the ibexes,
then it’s time we take off our masks and be honest with each other, like about how all of our nightmares star that statue you know the one
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if we have taken off our masks and are being honest with each other,
then we already changed into our pajamas and it is time for you to do so too
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if, while you are off changing into your pajamas, my neighbor david tells the rest of us a story, a story about a fatally hypnotic birthday card he wrote before he died
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if he tells us that, before he died, he hid that fatal birthday card in an honorable skull and gifted it to the curator of this very museum
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if he hid that fatal birthday card in an honorable skull and gifted it to the curator of this very museum,
she probably put it in with the ibexes
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if the curator put it in with the ibexes,
then we will all catch sight of it any moment now and be immediately hypnotized to death
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if we all catch sight of it now and are immediately hypnotized to death,
then you will return having changed into your pajamas to discover we all died in your absence, luminary next to luminary, murakami next to jodorowski, herakles alongside lockwood, ibex next to ibex like angel exterminators
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if you return having changed into your pajamas and discover that the rest of us died in your absence,
then surely you will be accused of murder and you will have to commit beauty to avoid a life sentence
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if you do not have to commit beauty to avoid a life sentence,
then you must never have been accused at all
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if you were never accused at all,
that bastard curator must have sent the fatally hypnotic birthday card to the presses and everyone outside the museum has died as well, like a bad dream
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if everyone outside the museum has died as well, like a bad dream,
clearly armageddon is upon us and you should consider moving into the hagia sophia to weather it out
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if armageddon is upon us and you decide to move into the hagia sophia to weather it out,
you may as well bring someone along with you so you have a lookout when you take up mdma
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like that statue of st teresa in ecstasy in santa maria della vittoria