The Hormone of Darkness
By Tilsa Otta
Translated By Farid Matuk
A nightclub doesn’t make a summer
I believe more in perreo
Play everlasting
In the agitation of a critical mass
So it bows before itself
Who hasn’t dreamed of reason?
What good
What good books you’ve got
Don’t ever forget
Porn sites aren’t secured
They trigger flashbacks of other lives
You can’t shut down
Don’t ever forget us
We transmit the viral international language of love
Pagan gods
Gave us life but we’ll take more
I have three X chromosomes, but I want +
+++
I want to be the hormone of darkness
I want to see
Who can open their mouth the most
Who has the longest tongue
The most cops disarmed and then armed again
Who put a hole where there was once a law
A prick where there was a whistle
Hysterically holding up traffic
The stoplights get even redder
The windows to the street don’t open
Our bodies
Leak and we dance
In an ethereopatriarchal position, which is to say
Barely metaphysically present and the very busy clouds
Rain, and oh how they come
Over the sewers with a chiding grimace of a baby on citrus
Assassins on shift around the world
Spared our lives but we want more
I’ve got three wishes but I want +
All the genius
All the wanting
To be your growth hormone
Let’s go to bed to get our dreams back
Get our friends safe
Never forget
We’re the filling in the same god plushy
That children hug when they’re scared
Luckily, there are all kinds of folkx
Imaginary friends and actual friends
Who believe in you and that’s why we’re possible
Don’t you forget
There are planets on other lives
Copyright Credit: Tilsa Otta, "The Hormone of Darkness" from The Hormone Of Darkness: A Playlist, trans. by Farid Matuk. Copyright © 2024 by Farid Matuk. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source: The Hormone Of Darkness: A Playlist (Graywolf Press, 2024)