walking through the russian literature section makes me feel like a sinner insensitive dostoevsky and the other jawbreakers you know tolstoy solzhenitsyn turgenev dumbledoreevery single one of them keeping their sadness in their beardsepic masculine cellars of a peoples despair overflowing onto bland black suitsthe weight of generations raised on vodka and potatoes and cold statues just flipping the pages i can hear the coughs of tuberculosis and pneumonia the click of malnourished bonessure were generalizing here probably being a little ethnocentric but every one of those volumes still comes off the shelf like a tombstone and also like an anvil because the grief is that heavy and also because if were honest the central party ran out of tombstones years ago you can stack all of the russian literature together in the whole wide library and have enough height to change a lightbulb and enough sadness to create a blackhole so please just dont stack all the russian literature together just a single sentence can carry more sadness than simple plans whole discography and weigh about as much as the oxford dictionary of english which is a lot of weight for a bookshelf or even for a human being but thankfully thank god sadness is like smoke and sometimes you just have to open a window let it diffuse into the greater air get swallowed upso lets open a window lets open a window together and grab the oxford dictionary of english and benchpress that baby get swol like arnold but really like ryan gosslinghey babe read me those 17 syllable wordslet me soak in their sound defenestration smaragdine sesquipedalianlet me luxuriate in language now teach me russian teach me greek lets read about the implementation of elementary russian into primary schools hold the books calloused covers like our grandparents hands when we were children the spine flying between them like a rope bridge our feet walking on air what a joy to be alive to breathe to hold a book another man held in the spring of 1984maybe a woman how old how did he or she feel about lilacs about the cold war about macroeconomics so many opinions held beneath the skin and bones that held this book up against the rudimentary physical forces acting upon it in the spring of 1984that are also acting upon it nowthat makes us colleagues compatriots we have all got at least one thing in common there was a person who hand drew the type face of this book i bet russian people have different fonts like we do vani and helvetica and times new roman and creepy gothic chiller in cyrillic and different and wonderful my friend jonah is dear to my soul and my friend jonah promises swears that anything in the whole world is interesting if you just pick it up and put it under a microscope and my friend jonahs soul is the biggest microscope i know he tells me of the homeless people who come to his bank to deposit catholic charities checks for 7 25 and who tell him about their cats homeless people have bank accounts and cats i found one once climbing the fire escape of an abandoned rehabilitation center for youth in downtown lynchburg virginia i found the white and orange cats brand new food bowl and water dish sitting new and terrifying and out of place beneath a weed grown from the building for so long it had a half inch stalk and leaves the size of decorative 17th century serving plates homeless people are people the oxford dictionary of english tells me that there are lost words but i think that sometimes we just lose each other in our words people lost like trees in the forests of our phrases and labels in 2013 u s tax code was 73 594 pages long and i used 500 pages of computer paper every semester at lycoming college in williamsport pennsylvania sometimes more and thank god i have never ever ever read the tax code depending on how you calculate though just me and the tax code are anywhere from three to nine trees and my page count alone is enough to start losing people pray over me in chinese there are scores and scores of chinese dialects and jesus christ speaks every single one of them jesus does not lose people pray over me in dutch too and swahili why dont you jesus knows all of the languages lets sing the national anthems of other countries togetherthey have them too you know there are 150 countriesthats 150 histories all thumping their geopolitical chests and trading their dollar store toys and their oil and their minerals and their literature like pokemon cardsthe earth is the bushes at recess and were all hiding from one another passing charizards for cargo ships of coconut oil and tanks and speaking of tanks tanks have tow trucks and those tow trucks for tanks have turrets on top because sometimes tow trucks for tanks need turrets a friend of a friend got a concussion in one so bad it split the two hemispheres of his brain like a heart the tow truck for tanks hit a jersey wall in iraq trying to turn around because sometimes tow trucks for tanks need to turn around too my friend of a friend got his concussion each brain hemisphere deciding on a mutual trial separation at the behest of the bolt in the ceiling that cracked his helmet in the divorce his ability to build things got forgotten bounced about between the parents but never quite feeling at home my friend of a friend is a very very real fleshy heart beatin kind of person just like you and me and hes currently somewhere in southern connecticut trying to build himself a barn again painfully devastatingly slowly trying to relearn how to build again to coax his talent out from under the stairs to come home lets rewind there are jersey walls in iraq there are people in iraqpeople who drink beer and chew gum and text while they poop and have babiesthere are day cares in iraq the people in iraq have 46 chromosomes we have 46 chromosomes the terrorists have 46 chromosomes the members of isis their impotent machetes hacking away at all the wrong oppressors have 46 chromosomes they are made in the image of god if im honest sometimes i hate that if im honest too jesus was probably brown jesus probably looked like a terrorist jesus was a terrorist or a revolutionary or a something semantically similar jesus was a threat its amazing what you can do with words jesus was and is and will always be my king jesus threatens my comfort and my status quo jesus makes me want to kiss you not on the lips but on the head in the deepest love i have ever known i want to hold you as honestly as i can wrap you up and dance spin you beneath these warm lights we are alive our god is alive im currently sitting on a wide white marble bench perfectly positioned beneath a clear glass skylight leaning my back against clear glassim walking on air again the walls of this art building are lined with the pieces of peoples souls glistening strands strung up and down like veins and this bench is shockingly well designed a startling blessing there is music onsomeone is practicing the piano thats something i cannot do my fingers they cant even fathom it when i ask them and thats just electricity me asking them and i am surrounded then and now and always and you are too by an unfathomable number of indefinable little specks of matter whatever the heck matter isall bumping into each other at just the right time at just the right speed at just the right way to produce a girl i cannot see practicing chopin in a backroom i cant see eitherwhat a miracle what a miracle to be alive to breathe to sit on a shockingly well designed wide white marble bench perfectly positioned beneath a clear glass skylight to reach out and put my fingers in doystoveskys beard and to comb out that sadness what a miracle to watch jesus combing and waxing the cellars of our sadnesses catching all of it up in his hands and raking our sins into mutton chops and planting seeds in our superfund hearts and growing corn and pumpkins and squash and tomatoes and zucchiniswhat a joy to watch the harvest come in you know if youve seen it do not forget it what a joy to interlace fingers to dance to study greek grammar to have ohara tell me of the trees and their spectaclesi can hear them breathing now too and pablo i can see those flowers that dont bloom and i carry their light within me now too next to yuri gordon and his fonts oh yuri what a joy to be alive the soul is an empty library and i feel daily minutely momently god himself is checking the books back in one by one i am growing up in the knowledge of god the speaker of worlds the designer of knee caps and holding cheeks in palms and hair between fingers the designer of tastebudschick fil a and chipotle a ballet across my tongue i am in love with you and with being alive with the music thats onjesus dropping a needle on the turntable the earth one grand 45 america a hymnal and the holy spirit teaching us to sing it and syrias one too and the oceanpacific and atlantic two dialects like chinese and jesus hears them all speaks them all spoke them all first teaches them all day and night the heavens pour forth speech pray over me in dutch worship with me in hindi shout with me in ebonics god has seen me naked every moment of my life and he still calls me son without hesitation do the electric slide with me beneath the starswhat language do they speak who knows but i know its praise teach me the hustle lets hug everyone in the whole freaking world and my friend bradley too but lets do it in swedish and make swedish meatballs for everyone swedish ly god is a generous generous generous faithful god lets eat ramen and raw cookie dough and give thanks for minimum wage and yachts and play tony hawks pro skater 2 with old friends and their wives because praise king jesus there is music on can you hear it praise king jesus there is music on can you hear it praise king jesus there is music on can you hear it what a miracle that in a time of nuclear war and plots to bomb everyone and days where i cannot shake the sadness on my own two people can still love each other and i can eat raw cookie dough with them and do kickflips and not break my legs praise king jesus there is music on and so i am learning to dance through the rows of russian literature through the lobbies of libraries of schools i dont go to through gas station parking lots and grocery store aisles through the capitol rotunda through tiananmen square and times square and trafalgar square and trailside elementarys foursquare court through chipotle my favorite restaurant through cape canaveral and the subway and chernobyl and riding that ferris wheel and doing the hokey pokey and chang chang changitty chang shoobop all the way to the top dancing all over my grave jesus and me and you and my parents and tolstoy and everyone were all dancing and were all singing and its a hosana and a hallelujuah and amen 
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