The Ring
I told my doctor, "I think I have ti nye tus."
He said, "Actually, it's pronounced 'ti nuh tuhs'."
I said, "I think you're missing the point."
He said, "Sometimes therapy helps. What have you tried so far?"
"Actually," I said...
There’s a game that I play where I make up the source,
of the frequency weighing on my life force.
I pretend it’s the static of every alien race,
broadcasting signals to deep outer space.
Of the fizzle of stars as they pass without grief,
their long-whispered, echoless sighs of relief.
Or the whistling whir of our movement through time,
the Doppler effect of an infinite line,
whizzing through wormholes and bending toward mass,
sorting our lives into present and past.
If a tree falls down in a forest somewhere,
and there's nobody out there to hear it,
maybe this isn't the sound that it makes,
but the sound of that sound's spirit,
Or the sound of our living, and breathing, and beating,
and building the strength to go through with this,
Or maybe it's the sound of hearing itself,
The sense so immensely fortuitous.
Hearing led us to water, and we tossed in our coins,
now our wells are all loaded with wishes,
And we bottle up water like trauma and sell it,
it's sitting inside of our fridges,
Hearing saved us from lions, and we learned to build fire,
now our phones can do that with their screens,
Maybe this sound is the scream of eight billion SIM cards
doing their things,
Or maybe it's the sound of the alcohol hitting us,
beat drop, dance floor, light show exhibiting us,
The sound of our moves as we're singing and we're spinning, and this,
sick, sonic groove dulls the voices inhibiting us,
Wait...
Have physicists found some sibilant black hole
sucking the esses from everything?
If it's true — if that popped — if this ringing ever stopped?
The silence would be deafening.
It’s a bombastic ring, a billion-ring circus,
big, burning ring of fire — ring leader trying to work us.
He's got that one of power — one ring to taunt us and limit us,
We've got that “til death do us part” ring. And that's it.
We just have to live with this.
So you'll find me in the soundscapes now,
Still trying to win at this,
Game I made up long ago,
To make peace with the tinnitus.
