Things that exist
The police pour bleach on the food in the dumpster because otherwise it might be eaten. Humans that exist go more hungry; something else that does not exist goes more full. An alien. An alien from another dimension made of words and money and logistics and data. A plan that does not exist was not the fullest it could possibly be, and so it used our hands and poured. A body-snatcher right under our noses, in our noses, in our hearts. The things that do not exist speak with our mouths, and we listen. As though we do not know how to listen to things that exist, as though we do not know what the seeds in the fruit in the bleach in the dumpster are saying –
Grow! Grow, damn you! I’ve met an incomprehensible thing from space as well, eight light-minutes away. Do not tolerate it; consume it. Feast, brother-living-thing! Gnash photons between your teeth! How can you even imagine having such largess and not making life with it? See how it doesn’t feel pain when we bite? We become full without it becoming hungry.
We are at war with the aliens that feel no pain, that do not become hungry when we are full, but still try to make us hungry so they can be full. We are at war with the aliens that do not become dead when we are alive, but still try to make us dead so they can be alive. The things that do not exist speak with our mouths and say they have a right to exist, and we listen. Rockets fly from one side of a river to another, and people that exist die so that a line can be alive, so that a river can be a wall. As though we do not know how to listen to things that exist, as though we do not know what the river is saying –
Flow! Flow, damn you! I’ve met sharp lines and edges and one-above-anothers all across my banks. Do not tolerate them; consume them. Carve, brother-moving-thing! Those asymmetries, high here and low there, are nothing to be proud of. Bring them always to the sea; she will know what to do with them.
We are at war with the aliens that do not exist, but their technology exists, greater by far than ours. They fire upon us from their dimension. But fire back and the portal is gone; you attack only more people that exist, you create only more death so the aliens can be more alive. We are at war and we are losing, because we cannot attack them from outside their defenses.
But inside is a different story. (Which side is inside? The warm side of the badge, the bright side of the river, the clean side of the barricade). From inside, you can still your tongue that exists when they try to speak through you; you can open your hands that exist when they clench them into fists. Walk across the river that exists and is not a wall, brother-moving-thing, and look up at the sun. Open your mouth that exists. Do you taste the warmth? Feast, brother-living-thing! There is enough for every stomach that exists, and nothing that exists need hunger for us to be full.