New-York, New-ark
No one has ever thought about how mechanical relationships between people are. The human brain, like a processor, controls the flow of events, but we blindly and piously believe that, in reality, we have freedom of choice, are dependent on external circumstances, or have some kind of intuition.
The words ‘I love you’ are as mechanical and automatic as sex between two primates at one o’clock in the morning. Such words are no different from a memorized prayer. No one loves anyone, because the brain of each person cares only about the survival of the body in which this brain is placed (who is the boss here: the brain, the person, or the body?).
Remember how you touch yourself against a naked body at night, forgetting for a moment what it all means (is it love, reproduction process, psychological play, making money on prostitution, or just raising your own ego?). Touching yourself against a naked body is another mechanical illusion of love.
What is loneliness? It is when I feel my own lonely fingers on a single bed in my sleep. My anxiety has drawn a broken line that connects love and loneliness. My fingers represent loneliness. But my fingers in your hair are also lonely, because sooner or later, I will be forced to give this hair freedom. You will leave and I will be left alone, perplexed: have you gone away and will never return, or do you just need to leave for a while, for example, to go to the toilet? For me, it’s both: loneliness. Loneliness makes me defenseless, because in a state of deep loneliness, I turn into a baby or a dying person (as is known, everyone is born and dies in loneliness without having the right to choose).
I have no choice but between death and life. I have no choice but mechanical, almost illusory love and an eternal, useless search for love. I am mechanical like a turnstile. At the same time, I am forced to think. I dream of stopping thinking so much and becoming a turnstile or a stone.
The bare wires of time are doomedly wound around my no less doomed body. So my reactions (or rather my brain’s reactions) are predetermined based on these impulses: smells, touches, memories, endlessly unsuccessful experiences, blind faith.
You don’t know how to separate my brain from me. My selfish brain thinks only of itself, and my body is just a meat vessel for this brain. Soon all books, phones and computers will be replaced by chips and my brain will stop pretending that everything in this world is created for the convenience of man. No, everything in this world is created for the survival of the brain.
The waterproof case for my body and smart processors are only needed to protect the SIM card. I don’t even know the phone number assigned to my brain and the provider. I know only faith. I know nothing. I want love. But no one needs me, not even my own brain.
I want my freckles to disappear. While I have freckles, no one will love me, not even my own brain. My own fingers caress my leg in my sleep. I dream of love, but it’s a mirage. It is not only mechanical, but also a lie.
Originally published on Chewers by Masticadores
© Mykyta Ryzhykh
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| Mykyta Ryzhykh |
Mykyta Ryzhykh, an author from Ukraine, now lives in Tromsø, Norway. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023 and 2024. He’s published in many literary magazines Ñ–n Ukrainian and English: Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, and many others.
