At some point, our wounds – both literal and figurative, though I suppose it is the latter we fear more -- begin to stitch themselves up when no one is looking. They threaten to usher in an era of relative sanity and of hygiene unlike anything we have ever experienced before. They are sick and tired of waiting for us to look after them properly. To figure out where each part belongs in relation to the whole and why we need different designations for the part and the whole when they are very nearly identical entities if examined closely. They belong to each other the way we belong to the ashes from which we are said to have arisen and to which we are said to return by those who don’t believe in anything other than a very strict interpretation of the phrases they read when they are home by themselves in bed with the lamp on and the wind howling outside like miners lost inside the mine, and the phrases that have been recited out loud to them at important ceremonies throughout their lives. At the start of banquets, for instance, that might then last sometimes in excess of six hours. The actual length all depends on who has been seated next to whom and what they find they have in common to discuss. Much of what gets said at functions of this sort involves the body and how to manipulate in such a way that it can be expected to give pleasure to others. I don’t think the object is to inform, though, to make sure those in attendance walk away with knowledge or insights they did not possess previously. I think the purpose is to eliminate all discussion of purpose once and for all. To relegate the concept to something like an empty box stored away in the corner of the cellar. The same corner where most of the other boxes are stored as well, and should you decide to open one of them because you are curious, because you have found that any enclosed cardboard space is apt to hide something of value, you would discover that it too has been used to store items and ideas no longer deemed necessary or relevant. Old baseball cards. Whisk brooms and ledgers in green covers with hand-printed numbers running down their pages like rain water down the tin sides of a shanty. Or the tattoos on the arms of the woman you loved once who you can’t quite get out of your mind now even though it has been twenty years since you last spoke to her, since she last wrapped you in those arms immaculate and tendriled, with the eagles anchored to them and staring out at a world fortunate enough to know how to move, to have never forgotten what it’s like to be in one place and then decide you want to be in another. And finding in the process that there is nothing capable of stopping you. No stubborn flesh. No borders made permanent with cheap ink and blood.