I sped toward wake knowing what they would say:

They would say be unlike but what they meant was be not be. They said stray from the conform, the mold that before your birth was cast for you, but what they meant was come, come lay in the lie that was made for you. See that mouth that would chew you into form most like? Chew first, through the womb that would contain.




But another came through a passage low and perched on the edge of wake. It said: Fear not that they will conform you, fear how they will unform you. You are all asked to be less than yourselves, to be passionless and clinical in the mark you leave, the craft or impression you create. Mark but not touch. Be handless, nameless, usless.

Answer, it said. Be not un, I said. Usless is Useless.