ELLIE CHOU / 6 HEXES
1
2.1 Orphactory
The way into the woods is older than the woods.
The woods die earlier than expected, but come back.
They then become woods which are less old, but still older than me.
The way into the woods is simpler.
It’s 0000.0.0000
The morning, in the wake of him, I give birth to sextuplets.
They’re each either 00 or 0.
I name all of them after their father so they’ll become him.
None of them want to become him.
In the woods, there’s the coin of the lake.
It’s shaped like a comma.
,
blood rims its tail, the color of everything older than blood.
The lake reserves itself to a feast it makes from the banks of the lake.
The banks feed it animals, which are neither 00 nor 0.
I’ll never mistake my children for the lake’s food.
So I swim in the lake.
I swallow its coin.
When I die, I’m divided into earth.
As I do this, my children gnarl themselves into the roots of my dying, not wanting to be left out, or left alone.
As I die, the stars begin to scream minutely.
You want to sink into this sound, but a reversal of gravity prevents it.
The earth made from me divides more, into air.
Where’s air? He comes back.
He stands by the door.
He doesn’t remember the woods, which are ////,
or the lake, which he splashes through, clung with more animals.
He tries to eat them.
He vomits.
The lake’s coin falls from his ear and he looks for an uncle or grandfather.
Finding no one, he looks for the forest.
He sees it now.
He’s slashed into trout.
2.2 I’m keeping a promise.
I’m keeping your secret.
Skin to scaling beneath your hand.
Next, there’s a bloom to describe me to you.
Pleating the door to the wall is sheet upon sheet of my bleeding.
Blood arranges itself under the door.
There’s a draining circle replacing your hand.
Also.
You’ll name it after your own name.
Your name is made of wood.
I’m the cliché of intestines in your letter.
We’re feathered in a sward of mist.
You’ll fold through filtering grease to find “solid.”
It’s not bone.
Trading my eye for your eye.
Some sound—sound is a declining orchard.
I’ll let you replace us with yourself.
Grail. Grate.
Does it feel better?
Mercury drains from my ear to your ear.
Simplicity under the world’s nest.
Shell to a bluff, a cliff.
Salt in the mailing of dust.
Torpor.
2.3 00.0.00.0.0.0.0.000.0.0.0000.0000.0.0.00.0.0.0
0.0.000.00.0000.0.0.0.0.0.0000.0.00.0.00.0.0.00
000.00.0.0.000.0.00.0.0.000.0.0.0.00.0.00.0.000
0.0.0.000.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.00.0.00.00.0.00.0.0.0
00000.0.0.0.000.0.0.0.00.0.000.00.0.0.000.0.00.0
Vist, Shine. Ser. Lin. Morf. Vine. Vatting. Wish.
Or, do you look? Slower slink, slurry. Combing corner.
I want this pillar. Shame to the whole house. It means lead.
Meals.
2.4 The smell of newspaper clippings is fascinating so you alloy it with every other smell. Now you’re like an eye on a plate, an eye that could have been pulled from a dog. The scene returns to the audience and kills it. Proxy exhibition—a dogtoothed eyesocket wants to be news, wants to be acknowledged for its moral or aesthetic integrity, doesn’t everyone? His suit’s a trenchcoat today, and his wife...
2.5 Where people are ordinarily repulsive, you’re extraordinarily so. This is possession. A dog eyeball makes the last payment on its socket.
2.6 He’ll love me again once ‘trashy’ becomes redeemable to fashion. He’ll love me as soon as he can raise David Bowie from the dead. He’ll love me as he recovers his childhood. He’ll love me through a loudspeaker in the field. All of this is a different way of having a child.
2.7 In Mandarin Chinese, ‘dog’ sounds a bit like ‘enough.’
2.8 “Who are you talking to?”
Mud, or 1111.11.1.1.11.1111
2.9 It (4.44.4444.44.4) decays in stages.
1 - Orphanage. Another one of my bones shrinks to fit into a hull of rice, which closes around it. The air knits together hands to fill dolls quilted from sackcloth with hulls and air, all of them named “Sea. ” I’ m trying to be more understandable to you. I means dentition. The seas flood the morgue. The seas flood your basements and garages. My hulls find stalks and ungrow themselves back into mud, as revenge. As earth, I start rooting out your fantasy.
2 - You slake a thirst with my foot. The thirst enters as a group of beetles slendered to a line. The line searches through my body for interest.
3 - Am I interesting to you? Could I be more interesting? Could I be so interesting it makes you want to kill me/yourself?
4 - As the mountain is made, the mountain in the stone inside of stone, which is the child, ape of age.
5 - Negatives: 0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.00.00.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.
00.00.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.
00.00.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.00.00.00.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.00.
0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.
0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.00.0.00.00.0.00.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.00.0.00
00.0.00.0.00.0.00.0.00.0.00.00.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.00.00.00.0.
0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.00.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.
0.00.0.0.00.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.
0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.00.0.0.00.00.0.
6 - Three shells in the course. Glints. Mirrored interval to your shining, or in chrysanthemum, in schist, a dove ’ s memory crawls through the stems of wood, rings the sun, which, fire, loves him better. Also this trellis since it’ s a weel, a bark, and here to replace you. Revising the foam which dissolves us.
I’m slower in pain or as pain.
I’ll remember you always after you leave me here.
Gentler divisions to my parting (I’ll let you keep me forever).
Nothing changed. I love you, so I’ll do anything.
The stone in the mountain (god).
7 - He worries about his wife as he slips her underwear over his face and strikes a wrestling pose.
The downstairs neighbor who sent the tie rack 30 years—no one can say what hell’s really like.
It’ll be Judy, who was always the most like her. She’ll steal her from him. Like she stole his hair. It’s just a matter of time, but since he knows now he can start the planning early, how long can he just jack off to it before he has to start pouring peroxide in the cereal, etc.
Is intuition what we think it is?
In my dream, you earned your bitterness and kept the tie rack.
Here comes Dad with a foam finger. I get a new older brother every day. I start running out of glue sticks—all of them starve.
When’s the mail coming? He’s expecting a thousand model ICBM missiles. He’s expecting his nephew taped into a shoebox. He’s expecting a coffee table edition of a book they assembled from someone’s tweets. He’s expecting an IPV-themed concept album made using Gameboy sounds. He’s expecting a mail order autistic woman.
Where’s the sound coming from?
Next, the sea of showers, the sea of cold, the sea of serenity, the sea of islands, the sea of moisture, the sea of clouds, the sea of Muscovy, the sea that has become known.
Next, the return of the sitcom, like the resuscitation of a dead language.
Next, the commercial, like the talk show monologue, gets its due, freezing the devil into frame like a jet of arctic spit, and I, too, have my man.
2
3
FACSIMILE:
G O S M S A H H HH HH H H A S M S O G
G g H M m G O s S A S s O G m M H g G
G O m M A S M a SsS s M S A M m O G
mer mer mer mer e rem rem rem rem
emmemmer remr emeermmrerer r
mmmeemmre ememe erm rrrrr eer
rre rmemrme er eerrmmm e mmr ee
... . . . ... . . ... .. . . ... . . .. . .. . .
. . ..... .. . .. .. .. .. ..... ... ....
. . .. . . .... .. ...... ... .. . .... ..
.. . . ... ... .. ... .. .. ..... . . ... .
. . .... ...... . ... . . .. . .... . ... .
.. . . ... ... .. ... .. .. ..... . . ... .
. . .. . . .... .. ...... ... .. . .... ..
. . ..... .. . .. .. .. .. ..... ... ....
... . . . ... . . ... .. . . ... . . .. . .. . .
rre rmemrme er eerrmmm e mmr ee
mmmeemmre ememe erm rrrrr eer
emmemmer remr emeermmrerer r
mer mer mer mer e rem rem rem rem
G O m M A S M a SsS s M S A M m O G
G g H M m G O s S A S s O G m M H g G
G O S M S A H H HH HH H H A S M S O G
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
the gills and heart
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
he cut from
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
an abalone
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓
☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️⛓☁️
hhssshshshhhsssssshshhshssshhhh
hshhsshsssssssshhhhhhhhhssshshs
hhshshsshhshhsshshssshshhshhsss
hhshhshssshsshsshsshhhhshshhsss
ssshshshhshhssssshshshshsshhhhh
ssshsshshshsshshhhhshhhssshsshh
hhshsshhsshhhhsssshssshhshhsshs
sshshhshshhhsssshsssshhshhhhssh
hsssssshhshsshshhhhsshhsssshhhh
shhhhshhhssshhsshsssshhhssshhss
hhshssssshhhhhhhsshhsssshssshhs
hshssssshhhshshhhhshhssssshshsh
hshssssshhhshshhhhshhssssshshsh
hshhsshsssssssshhhhhhhhhssshshs
4
FORGETTING LOVE
(countersongs***************
*********************************
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Girlfriend experience (Saori 1)
ingredients in a throat that makes
of everything a light and undressable custard
. A hole here is a vacuum
to a stomach that I’ve just made run in reverse
Some remnants collude
with the surreptitious onsen jives, and their
ancestry’s been in the newspapers lately.
a new, braver man goes to bed with a system of
naming.
Who knows when he’ll get that attachment?
Triviality love song
And we can’t help but be nostalgic for the safety of
objects.
A dehiscence’s comma makes its splotch
its grossness a marvel, as much as its
intersection with ordure and skin.
To wonder about the economy of anything, that
something could be made to be unmade or made
into something else.
In every case, the process of adoring me comprises
the exhibitions of a come-on, its syntax obvious
with all the disastrous secret dealings made
between the desire to be ingenius and the desire to seem
older and more secret than I am.
And you can never fully bring yourself to think
about how stupid you are, how stupid you’ve
been.
Eclipticate
Measureless skin fish makes his mouth
into a mirroring hole.
There are his announcement eyes:
death! show! death! death!
what will you hope to keep
in all his glassy and imperturbable?
incautious need, watchful persistence,
through exposure myriad, his nows
pliant and insoluble, a jelly.
My name’s Saori, my upper lip’s stiffer than
yours. I’m resting in a parallel, my ankles
equidistant from dirt’s imaginary axis,
and you’re another fragrant fluid,
feeding this next mammalian synthesis.
We make everyone who fucks us.
Removable head (Saori 2)
The winter’s here, and he has to change my coat.
The door has been yellowing in the same spot
for what by now must be ages and ages.
Why does he look like that?
Carved face persistent, sculpting
into a jutting lip, incise his eyes,
wind those hairs around his forehead so
that he can look at me with just that same look
day descriptionlessly after day.
No one is really lonely.
An aperture too small to look through,
I’m lucky because I start with one.
My several heads of hair are seething on their posts.
They’re just itching to come die on my scalp.
When he lifts up my eyes, I shrink, as if to hide
the stiff thing that’s been solidifying in my throat.
It’s just so embarrassing
to have to see someone using
all those unmentionable things
secretly working to hold you together.
So did you know? Before night, when the sky turns disaster first, and one second jilted, melted, terror in a thousand different ways, or, like. I’m trailing behind myself; smashed into the back of my head, my life explodes into dizzy retrospect. Meaning I waver, unraveling into air with my hair, getting scraped off of shoes, lost with gum wrappers, left behind on toilet seats as phantasmal warmth. Things like this.
Someone says the first crash will be awful, which it is: a) A severed arm in its several places is like its own, different animal, its jumble of impromptu joints declaring the total obsolescence of living. This hand folds into itself, surprise communion of knuckles and wrist, and the whole world feels queasy, sick, in particular, of you. b) “Like, could I laugh?”
5
SCENE 5/KILLING KENNEDY: I made him into gorse today. It would have been night like he’d thresh from other night and grind into meal, or would cut like a sliver out of a rubber leg, listing memory into the bed, next into fossil tar, fucking his sister, and no plants rememberable. Tony, who was complete, gurgled through his very last patch of tracheal mush. Mincing him introduced him to a sense of preciousness that was unendurable. “Gore is a verb you grin through.” Was. Now his stomach purls, remigrating from where it had been nestled between his lungs. ✣ In the cartoon version every pleat of Ken would rubberband into afterward incarnation, he would twist tight like a memory of air before your body dissolves into secrecy, held by a glove with teardrop fingers, eyes on the knuckles like you’d cut into pie crust. Past a certain depth his intricacy loses relevance, and you could just strip the neural fibrils with a sewing needle. It’s like adding a dimmer switch to his mind. In real life you have to splinter a dental mirror then slice him thinner than floss. Any word later ties him back together, the bells petaled from his testicles and eyes glistering among spurs split from his pelvis, femurs, unappreciable spine, threaded to a braid of his brain stem. He looked only a bit more atrocious now that he was a shrub, but this has nothing to do with anything. Just him.
6
Cyclops: 1.0.1 To miss. Or. Or. Or. Or. Or. Or.
Or. 111111.111.0000.00.0.00.0000.111.111111
Stapes. Steppe (Or. Or. Or.) - ...23, 24, 25, 26, 27,
28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34... 44.4.1.4.0.4.1.4.44
Window (Or.) 1.1.1.1.1.0.1.1.1.1.1 Next (36) and
three steps. Mill. Injector. Miller. 6 more colors. Next
(35). On relinquishing his August’s rest, he makes me, after everyone else. I’m used as his substitute for someone else. He doesn’t think about me in particular, even though I’m seen as myself in ten. And I have only one shape, but I have the work of two. One man will see the closed-off pieces of me, but won’t observe them with his eyes. I’m not a house, but a big inhabitant is coming. I don’t have a door. Everyone fills me at the same time. Next (37). Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. 4.4.4.4.0.4.4.4.4 The form is left, and the purpose of the two people is given as an image. Because the form is the quantity it is given, but no other (last), You make us as a state by the force of the species. It's mine, I will treat the picture as my own. One is guaranteed. Only the pit) The moon is by this, too—
10 - Eclipse: 0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.00.00.00.0.0.00.0.0.00.
00.00.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.
00.00.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.00.00.00.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.00.0.0.0.00.0.00.
0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.00.0.0.0.0.00.00.00.00.0.0.0.0.0.00.0.0.0.
Ellie Chou is the author of Psychopomp 2023 with Kenji Siratori. Her writing has appeared in SCAB, Hyper-Annotation, and Chant de la Sirène. She makes art in Chicago.