Nothing but a sham. Eat your greens. It's not sanitary to touch things. Please keep hands inside your cellophane pockets. The internet tells us who dies before the dying happens. Dungeons and Komodo Dragons. Yoga arms. Yoga neck. Yoga abdominals. I dare you, keep on trying to outlive yourself. An endless scroll. Trash on Tuesdays. Rubber gloves, smart man.
She Considered
My calling wrings out the sponge
My calling broke her knee
My calling cannot reach this scratch
My calling is unqualified
My calling is overqualified
My calling strives for three-quarters-present motherhood
My calling drinks two glasses of white wine after six
My calling rubs sleep from her eyes
My calling lingers in Varanasi
My calling cleans dirty sheets
My calling smells vaginal brine
My calling picks a wet towel up off the floor
My calling is not a schmuck
My calling tries to forget desire (but doesn't)
My calling stuffed the refrigerator
My calling unwillingly pays medical bills
My calling hums in the tune of yellow
My calling pets the cats
My calling wipes a morning shit from her ass
My calling pouts old beauty away
My calling sweeps crumbs from the floor
My calling deletes unread emails
My calling flinches inside a corporate machine
My calling thinks about the relevance of her calling
My calling comes from a place of privilege
My calling puts away her tits and ass
My calling is nowhere to be seen
My calling weeds the garden
My calling chews minor's lettuce
My calling sails a Turkish gullet
My calling plans nothing
My calling sips tea without an agenda
My calling thinks her calling is an asshole
My calling can't tell what day of the week it is
My calling prefers the misspelling of words
My calling hates a little and loves enough
My calling excavates without shovels
My calling lost her place in line
My calling planted sunflowers with the Easter bunny's paw
My calling boxes ghost mitts
My calling should write her grandmother a postcard
My calling prefers not to reach the mountain's top
My calling strokes the hair on her chest
My calling wrestles with their calling
My calling sews all her own clothes from the leather of a rat
My calling sings about fucking and fear
My calling has too much to do today
My calling fills the tub halfway
My calling mourns the loss of her Fisher Price record player
My calling burns with the sun
My calling licks the spoon
My calling doesn't like what she looks like in high waisted pants
My calling is a simple toga
My calling wrecks the ball
My calling thinks incessant happiness is a myth created by a waxy American smile
My calling is the UPS driver
My calling wonders about time and space just like everyone else
My calling exhales stale farts
My calling is in meetings about meetings
My calling puts the car in reverse
My calling fills the cat's bowl with water
My calling gets lost in suburbs
My calling claps her hands to scare away bears
My calling misses her Vietnamese landlady
My calling prefers to think of herself as an ape
My calling doesn't check in with the weather report
My calling hangs upside down
My calling watches her skin dry
My calling envisions a relatively comfortable death
My calling is beyond her control
My calling lost her keys
My calling avoids being bitten by rabid dogs
My calling sleeps well inside the fetal position
My calling calls her mother once a day
My calling takes deep breaths to avoid heart palpitations
My calling hops on the train and goes
The Animal Model of Inescapable Shock - Anne Boyer
If an animal has previously suffered escapable shock, and then she suffers inescapable shock, she will be happier than if she has previously not suffered escapable shock — for if she hasn’t, she will only know about being shocked inescapably.
But if she has been inescapably shocked before, and she is put in the conditions where she was inescapably shocked before, she will behave as if being shocked, mostly. Her misery doesn’t require acts. Her misery requires conditions.
If an animal is inescapably shocked once, and then the second time she is dragged across the electrified grid to some non-shocking space, she will be happier than if she isn’t dragged across the electrified grid. The next time she is shocked, she will be happier because she will know there is a place that isn’t an electrified grid. She will be happier because rather than just being dragged onto an electrified grid by a human who then hurts her, the human can then drag her off of it.
If an animal is shocked, escapably or inescapably, she will manifest deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her. If she has manifested deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her, she will manifest deeper reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her and then dragged her off the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for electrified grids. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for what is not the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for dragging. She may also develop deep feelings of attachment for science, laboratories, experimentation, electricity, and informative forms of torture.
If an animal is shocked, she will manufacture an analgesic response. These will be incredible levels of endogenous opioids. This will be better than anything. Then later, there will be no opioids, and she will go back to the human who has shocked her looking for more opioids. She will go to the shocking condition — called “science” — and there in the condition she will flood with endogenous opioids, along with cortisol and other things which feel arousing.
Eventually all arousal will feel like shock. She will not be steady, though, in her self-supply of analgesic. She will not always be able to dwell in science, as much as she now believes she loves it.
That humans are animals means it is possible that the animal model of inescapable shock explains why humans go to movies, lovers stay with those who don’t love them, the poor serve the rich, the soldiers continue to fight, and other confused, arousing things. Also, how is capitalism not an infinite laboratory called “conditions”? And where is the edge of the electrified grid?
