Mercury-lined sorting hat offers glimpses into glaucomic past

Synapses flailing in my brain, shooting lightning from their coiled fingertips, birch-bark lips, expecto patronum to cast away the evil demon Dementors… capitulate to the Cartesian cogito… under the arduous burden of proof, if the senses deceive what can I receive, who will I be, what will I mean… Zeus killed Semele in a show of his glory… prove it… what synapses flailed alongside her flailing, her flailing soma? Soma. So much. So much more… Where was her expecto patronum when she needed it most? Can you fight fire with fire? Lightning with lightning? A spell with a spell? A host with a host? A stag with a… what? Stag against staggered, Horcruxes may only be created after someone has been murdered, when the soul is ripped open… hide a fragment of my soul in your soul, the soul I ripped open alongside my own. Make me immortal but I killed myself, I murdered another, ushered the fall of the house, the fall of my own… could not convince myself, could not invince myself, could not not-murder, this is the hoax of the Horcrux, and birthed from my left thigh is Dionysus, Dumbledore, villain-arc activated… twice born, but maybe in another life, Tom Riddle wouldn’t have caused us just so much strife. Lightning show-down, laser tag you’re it, cheese-touch, don’t touch me, keep your wand ready, set. Go. TAKEOFF! Synapses flailing in my brain in your brain in the rain how we feign in the rain when we fall in the fall we rake leaves of grass, Walt Whitman you are too patient and I am The Poet… simmering, simmering, simmering, bring me to a boil, Emerson, ever son, forever son, infect me with your toil! double-over, double-born, double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! You want eye of newt and toe of frog, but not our Newt Scamander, he’s with his Niffler in the bog. You’re east of Eden, but I’m the wicked witch of the west, off to Emerald City, this gold is so gritty, no I’m not that kind of witch, daddy’s money, won’t melt like a muggle, I’m anyone’s bitch, Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through! Just ask the Ministry of Magic, they always knew it was you. calm down! fine! you’re right, I’d take them any day over the Ministry of Love, double-over, double-born, double-think, methinks not! The lady doth protest too much! A play within a play, a thigh within a thigh, what is there to say about an eye within an eye? Say? Say first, that I may see and tell of things invisible to mortal sight, tell me, call me by your name and I’ll call you by mine, see me with your eye and I’ll see you with mine, sew me in your thigh and I’ll be born alive, is it better to speak or to die? Call me Ishmael even though I am Malala. There’s a tunnel under ocean boulevard, they say. there’s a what? better learn how to swim! Time to exit the cave, moribund Brothers Grimm. Prim and proper, chivalry is dead! hearts aglow, I’ll give you the sun, it’s also a star, you know. We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness, you call me “Comrade” but you know I’m a beast, fantastic dweller and never quite at peace, Minipax Romana, we’ll crumble upon ourselves! I’ll be your Socrates if you’ll be my hemlock, look up, a million faultless stars smiling down, down, down – (I was expecting turtles all the way down?) – Aquinas has five ways to choke an infinite regress! Five ways to cloak invisibility at its best! If God is a circle whose center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere, is lightning its diameter? Its Demeter? What about iambic pentameter? Twice-born, Mother of Corn, let them eat cake! I sprout from the underground, won’t die at the stake, mortal coils are so easy to shuffle off of! Fair is foul and foul is fair, it’s a bright cold day in April and the clocks are striking thirteen, at this evil hour, all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream… sorry I think I lost my heart in the floorboards, where are all these black cats coming from?! I’m just minding my business searching for some gold, I think I’m sick – sick – sick – ow! this one keeps giving me a lick! why won’t he pounce off to a mouse, to a louse? I’ll feed him on honey-dew, drink the milk of paradise, roll the dice, particle accelerate my life. My life had stood – a loaded gun… but I’m not throwing away my shot! For I have but the power to kill, without the power to die – to die – to lie – who lives, who dies, who tells your story? Stories sell, everyone needs a narrative these days. Democrat? Republican? How about both! No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it! American history is so greedy. Life, liberty, and property! Three natural rights, a new holy trinity… a time-capsule on earth, and now you’re my enemy? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, a house divided cannot stand, heed my command, to live is the rarest thing in the world; most people exist, that is all, but! here’s something evermore about to be, imaginary, what are these somethings? what will they be? will they be free? Easy? We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard. Hard? I’ll show you hard! Hope is a thing with feathers, but you’ve killed two birds with one stone. You’ve what?! You! Know thyself! You’re a wizard, Harry – I’m a what? Two birds, one stone, watch out for Buckbeak! Achilles is a lion but I’m just a man, phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall, and sleep at night – don’t! – awaken from your dogmatic slumber, pay no attention to trivial sights, see and tell, dissolve yourself, transparent eyeball, be nothing! see all! Compass of that sea, who will I be? Have I found myself, more truly and more strange? Finally? O! I know it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but they say, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light, the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it – comprehend it! God said ‘let there be light!’ I know what he said. then why are you asking me. I’m not asking, I’m telling. I thought God is dead and we have killed him? Ugh! I’m bored, either this wallpaper goes or I do. what? are you talking to the wallpaper? no. are you hearing voices? no. voices? no! voices, what are you gonna do? voices, voices, your name, mine, speak, die, voices, say first! think! think! think! – cogito ergo sum.