Ocean Vuongs digt Theology

21.05.2024 | digte

Jeg fandt det her vildt fede og ret mystisk drømmeagtige digt af Ocean Vuong et sted, derefter et mere officielt sted, nemlig The New Yorker. Digtet hedder Theology, and it goes a little something like this:

Do you remember when I tried to be good. It was a bad time. So much was burning without a source. I’m sorry I was so young. I didn’t mean it. It’s just this thing is heavy. How could anyone hold all of it & not melt. I thought gravity was a law, which meant it could be broken. But it’s more like a language. Once you’re in it you never get out. A fool, I climbed out the window just to look at the stars. It was too dark & the crickets sounded like people I know saying something I don’t. I think I had brothers. Think I heard them crying once, then laughing, until the laughing was just in my head. That’s how it is here: leaky. One day, while crossing the creek, I met a boy. Lips red as a scraped knee. When our eyes met, he gasped. Then raised his rifle. That’s how I found out I was a squirrel. That’s how I lost my tail, the only thing I was great at. I don’t know what my name is but I can feel it. A throbbing in the blood. Last night, I heard a voice & climbed to the tallest branch, so high I forgot all the rules. It was like being skinned into purpose. Below me was a rectangle the man had been digging all night. I watched him a long time, his body a question mark unravelling. When the light grew pink, the man stopped. Others, in black coats, gathered around him. I know I was put here for a reason, but I spend most days just missing everybody. The man lowered a box into the slot he had dug. As if pushing a coin into a giant machine. That must be how they pay to be here.

Sure sounds like crickets.

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