Jun Maruyama

Licorice Theft

If I were a fly, the red licorice sticks, and I am the seed.

I am the seed. If I am the thief, then the house is the abode in which I reside, in which I destruct and in which it destructs in me. It is not my choice. Licorice is the key, and it is the mouth that is the lock, which is what I will unlock. The licorice—I do not possess; I do not have; I do not contain. And so the thievery begins.

And so the thievery begins. There is the door, the closed door, the door which keeps me inside. The horror. The ambulance. The humiliation. It is white, so white, pasty white, unwell white, the white that untwists, the writhing, I’m possessed to look at in its pale allure and unclosed eyes; the suspension; the condemnation; the punishment; I’m scared of the plaqueness, its entrapment, its driedness and stickiness, the glitch. This door, the closed door, its perpetual lockedness—it confines me, and I’m swallowing the cages, the wires. If the door unlocks, if the door becomes unclosed, then I am in match with the door’s unclosedness, and the unclosedness unravels me. This unspooling, the cords; my vocal cords; my ventriculars, undoing, ordains my attention, and I will be in arrestment. I’m disintegrating into this foreboding, and that is when I realize the door is watching me. It knows my whereabouts.

My whereabouts. The untelling. The secrets which I now possess, and I’m in the door’s grasp. The distance between us is measurable in magnitudes, and it is flavorless. On my tongue I’m without the decadence of taste, and this tastelessness agonizes me to banish my trapped position, to banish what lies between me and my potential, my escape, the space which leaves me lingered and stagnant, to abandon the insipid, to abandon the tastelessness, and it is only through taste, the taste of licorice, the taste of sweetness, that my escape is possible. The banishing—I’m unhooking myself for the sweetness. If I banish this ensnaring, I enter a path of unsnaring, of unloosening. Crawling—my agonizing inching, like tonsil scratching, and the oppressive shortening of distance between the door and I persists, and this is when the skin on my hand touches cold, this is when I touch the door, the doorknob—the horror, the ordination, the electrocution; the feeling of abomination is in my hands.

The feeling of abomination is in my hands, and I am ravenous. Oh this is my inclination, my disposition, my pretension, these episodics, and the turning of the knob (my hand movement is out of my control) unfolds before me and the unclicking is the tongue snapping, and my throat dislodges. The door opens its mouth—its black expanse presents to me, and I’m enraptured, and threatened, into stillness, and I’m returned into my stationary impingement, my eternal statuedness: the suffering. If I crawl into the black throat, get up, and take a step forward, will I be swallowed? Imbibed? Or spat up—after being tasted—and left on the floor, like sun-melted flies? The ooze; the speckled tar; the wasted. I’m like the wasted. The tarnished. The thrown-up. Do I dare enter the black tube or do I stay in this room, my room of entrapment, with the single light, with the windowless walls? Yes, I touch the floor of the black tunnel—it groans; I only place my fingers down, delicately, like brushing against fresh paint: blood. Wet interiors. The floor meets my fingers, and my breath trembles. The touch—is it wet? It is wet. It might not be wet. I’m discovering what cannot be touched by me: the forbidden. It forbids me from touching, yet, I am touching. The rubbing at the fingertips, the discerning. This is where I must walk, where I must traverse, where I must venture; into the unknown, the dilapidated throat, into the forbidden: swallowed.

Swallowed, and digested. The releasing of the contact of my fingers with the floor of uncertain wetness, and on my knees I shift to my feet, quivering. The border, the framework, the edging, the between, I stand at, the punishing lingering, and the harsh darkness consumes my breath (I no longer have lungs) and suddenly I’m drowning, in the insurmountable, in the asphyxiation; there is no breathing in the dark throat; there is no holding on. My foot moves forward, and I’m in spite, in resistance; magnetic pulses, to be drawn back, into the blandness, into my lockedness, where I have nothing, and in my internal resistance, my other foot moves forward, into the throat’s watching, its sensitivities, and touches the beneath, which is wet, and it may not be. I step further, grasping the walls, which may or may not be wet, too. Who or what is growling? It is the stomach. The echoes are carried throughout the throat tunnels, and carry endlessly, and I’m cavernous. The caverns, the saliva; the trenches, the dampness. I’m enveloped in dampness, in moistness, and the monstrous darkness stares, and I cannot go any further. I retreat. I retreat into the recesses of my mind, and in my mind, I’m returned to my dreams, to the dream about the sense of killing, of the oncoming of being killed, the calmness, the anticipation, the horror, of the killingness, of the being killed, the potential, the sweetness of not being found, and the sweetness, of which I’m deprived, is at the tips, the overture, the overhang, and the growling of my stomach returns me to the stickiness, the moist halls, the sodden. The moistenedness makes me swallow, the dryness, the arid in the throat; the disgust and the hotness. My hot breaths, and the hall’s throating. I’m embroiled when I take another step further, and the halls sense my movement. The skin on my feet, the pulsing. Oh, the disgust. It senses my disgust, and I’m liquid, the delectable melting.

It senses my disgust, and I’m liquid, the delectable melting. My throat—the flaps of flesh, the puckering, the uvular sputtering. If I make my next move, my next movement, for I am only sensation, the hall will flinch, pucker, recoil, and its noticings will vibrate in sharp domes up and throughout my body. I’m pulsing, and the throat retracts. I make my move—another step, and this time, in this second, in this moment, I’m met with indecision—what if the licorice cannot be found? Where do I look? The looking—the throat is looking, and I’m being ingested. Its stomach rattles and chews; I’m guzzled. Gargled, the salty abyss; this saltiness and wetness, its thickness swarming in the pockets of my throat. The collection of saline pulp. I’m being eaten, and looked at. To refuse its looking—the desire to be upchucked is fervent, and now, in my fixation, I’m swallowed by its looking, its ogling, and I swallow the looking—the thickness, the sopping; its syrup and gunk—oh this heat, this harboring—my body is the vessel, the abode of salty thickness, and there, yes, I make another step forward, and to this, I grasp tightly to the walls, to whatever I can grab onto, and the uncertainty invigorates the throat’s listening, the growls. My growling stomach; we are both vibrations. The lower is the passage, the tunnel, and I hear the wailings in my insides—the whispers, the gaspings, the scrapings; clinging to the walls, making etches, bleeding imprints; an unknown history—and another step forward I take, listening to the lower, where the roots are; I’m seeking history, in the engravings of the lower, the pried roots; I’m seeking this history, the sweetness, the history of sweetness, sweet history, its drippings, its salt-filled droplets, it is found in my lower, and I’m following it, I’m tasting it—my sweetness swallows and engulfs me.

I’m following it, I’m tasting it—my sweetness swallows and engulfs me. I’m desire, and history is in my throat. This history—its forgottenness and its capturings. I’m moleculars from the licorice, and its histories are being etched in the valves of the throat, the lining of the stomach. Where is my destination? Where am I led to? I’m swallowed further into the throat hollows, and the wetness below remains a mystery. I cannot forget this sweetness. I cannot let it go. It is my attachment to history, and without the sweetness, there can be no history, and the history, the composition of sweetness, is in the licorice, the licorice itself, and the licorice is my destination. Oh, the licorice. I’m filled with bitterness, and I’m in need of sweetness. The bitter—the feeding, the teething, the granulation, sticking to my teeth: the feasting. I’m further into the black void, the black tunnel, the light from the room a globe behind me, and I realize I’m bitter history, a walking embitterment, searching for sweetness, yet the sweetness is also in me. I’m searching for the sweetness further in front of me and further down inside me, within me—to discover its origins. Where does sweetness come from? I am sweetness, and bitterness. The sweetness is my potential, my possession, and the release. The darkness deluges me, and I swallow to expel. The expelling—of the darkness I consume—and I’m expelled from history: my twisteds and unwanted sweetnesses, my bitters. They do not want, and leave me in this darkness, these caverns, these unlit hollows. I am to loiter. I am to wander endlessly. The banishment—I banish. The sweetness I crave, and the sweetness craves me, and in this craving, I’m born; I’m born from craving. I take another step forward, toward my unlocated desire, toward a birth, in the tunnel of darkness, and my senses are stimulated, the molecular level, the underneath, my throat aroused like gills, and I’m invigorated—I’m provoking the throat, and it quivers. The hotness of my heightenedness, and there, I sense, the redness, the red shapes, the reddening, the continuous reddening; the shortening of distance between us is craving, and I’m coated in desirous closeness. Oh the delectable, oh the delicious. The tasteful collapse. I’ve been without for so long—the continual stripping, the ripping; this etching, this coming together, this stitching. I’m crumbling; the disintegration. Oh the loveliness, the enamoring. My breath is sap, and the soiled. There, the red cylindrics, the red tubes—there they are, their redness like tongues, skinless flesh. I’m sugared and waxing. The salivation, the salivary glands—their salts and confessions. Oh the reaching, it is infinite, extenuating, and I’m extending, the implosion of ribs and heavy lungs, the swelling, the loss of limbs, the planetary explosions, cell reformations, and I’m reaching for the licorice, for this, for this moment, for this capturing, and its taste is in reach, the reaching is sweet, profusive succulence, bursting fruit; the plentiful, the coatings. Oh this moment, this reaping. The licorice is the decadent, and I am its offspring.

The licorice is the decadent, and I am its offspring. I’m born, succulent, and the throat is undulating. The sweetness is within my grasp, and I’m met with abnegation. Do I take? Do I possess? Is it mine to take? The gulping, the palpitating—I’m soaking in denial and uncertainty. Do I take? Yes, I must take. It is mine. It must be mine. All mine. I’m taken. I take. This taking is mine. My hand extends and reaches. I feel myself being pulled back like plaster, yet the licorice magnetics pull me in. The licorice is gravity. The distance between the licorice and I shorten, and the darkness listens, enshrouding me. If I take it, the licorice, I will be possessed, and I will possess, and I will be at completion, the interstices of possession. This moment is mutable, and the contact between finger and licorice is prolific—the slick, the infinity, it is left in my fingertips, which meets my lips and tongue and teeth, and this meeting is detonation, solar collapse, bodily decomposition. The entrance of the licorice. In this entrance, and the passing of this entrance, is the taste, the sweetness; an overwhelming sensation and stasis. I’m swelling—the puffing; my throat is the tympanum, the recurrent stretching. The closing of teeth, the biting, the cutting of the red wax, the contact of bone, and the sweetness in the mouth, on the tongue—the thickness. My tongue is the bed, and I’m chewing and swallowing the licorice for its sleep. The viscous, coating my teeth, and I’m gelatinous. The wetness, the viscid chunks. The swallowing; a possession. I’m possessing this swallowing, and I’m swallowed by this possession. I’ve taken the licorice. The licorice has taken me. This takenness, this sweltering. And I see, yes, my history, this history of sweetness, this sweet history; it is only through taste is this known, is this foreseen, is this held. In the splits of biting, the compressed sparks, the flashings, on the tongue, between teeth, the sweltering sweetness, I see my history, and this history sees me. The darknesses, the sweetnesses, and the forgotten. The sweetnesses in the glimpses, in the severences, in the pockets. The history only found in the sweetness, and the sweetness that is resisting the bitterness of history. This bitterness that consumes our sweetnesses. Are we not also bitter? Who is the bitter? The monsters of history, the monsters in history. Who are the monsters? The sweetness tells me. I know, and I cannot be known. Whose history lets me be known? I’m hidden from history. The monstrosity of history, and I am made a monster. Oh this eating—am I the despicable? Am I the distrusted? I’m capsized by this throat’s darkness, and this is when I realize the tunnel is the history. The history is the throat, the swallowing, the watching, the consumption. The history consumes me, and I shall consume it. But, oh, what is this? What is this feeling? In my lower—the bubbling, the gutting, the tearing. Oh goodness, what is in my below? This is not right. This cannot be—is this not my escape? Is licorice not the escape? History is invading me. The bitter. Oh, goodness, the twisting. I’m being writhed and eaten. My knees meet the wetness below. I am only a groan. The darkness’ throat grins. The throat regurgitates; the spitting. The darkness is gulping me, and I’m insipid.

The darkness is gulping me, and I’m insipid. I’m tasteless and tasted. The licorice, the deceiver—who is the deceiver? Like many times, many histories, many centuries, I’ve been deceived. My stomach, my below, groans and cries out—the rippling, the shredding. The evaporation of the redness, the red glow. I’m struggling. I feel the wetness below and grasp onto the table that held the licorice. I’m vast and full of sharpness. I cannot fathom this deception. The sweetness—the deception? What am I deceived by? I cannot ask the “why” because I know the “why.” I’ve seen it before. The asking of the “why” is the bitter. The “why” is the bitter. But maybe I have missed something, and the “why” must be asked. Why am I deceived? This question sits on my tongue—oh it is so bitter. I spit. The sputum. The horror of the “why.” I see the deception in the spit, which blends with the potential wetness beneath me. The liquid deception. The poison cuts me, in my below, and I’m surrounded by darkness, and deception. The darkness deceives me. I’m its spitting, and its adoration. To be deceived is my history, the history of sweetness—to be tossed out and spat. Inside me is ache. The monstrous is inside me. Do I contain the monstrous? Does it contain me? The monstrous—is it the deception? Do I deceive the deception, which then may be the monstrous? Do I then deceive the monstrous? And does the monstrous deceive me? The pain strikes me in my lower. I stumble. I struggle to lift myself up. The poisoning—I’m poisoned by the sweetness, in which I trusted. Where do I go now? What is my destination? What is my escape? I sense the opening of the universes, the explosion of planets, orgasmic pleasures. I’m an unearthly being. I’m undestined. I cannot face this truth. I’ve made the poison, and I’m poison. The hall throat snickers, its bites eating into my shoulders and throat, my stomach unraveling in its clawed contortions. Its laughter is hideous. What is this torture? I absorb the hideousness, the wetness below, the sweetness of poison. In my standing up, I’m struck by a hideous thought—what if there is no escape? What if my existence, which is an existence of sweetness, is torture? Who has tortured me? This I swallow, and I’m saturated in the throat’s presence—its growing wetness, its encroaching dark. I grip the table with my wet hands, the slickness of an amphibian, and I’ve come to realize I am in total darkness. The light has disappeared. The darkness inundates. How far have I traveled? And for how long? I’ve lost the knowledge of my position. I’m senseless. I’m all hunger and I harbor the sweetness’ hunger. The hunger of loss and what cannot be mine; what is not made mine. What I cannot have. The darkness is making me hideous. I cannot stare at it. What is in this hideousness? What is its disguise? In this disguise, is there sweetness? Is this the hidden history? The hideousness has taken the sweetness in captivity. The hideousness’ torment. It is ugly and monstrous. How do I retrieve the sweetness from its captivity? The sweetness has been taken away from me, and I’m left with the residue. That licorice, which I had taken a bite of, a half of it, moments ago—that shock of sweetness, that glimpse into what is known. What must I do? The pain slashes in my lower, and I struggle to breathe. Yes, I must swallow it. I must swallow the hideousness. Swallowing is possession. I’m only a funnel; the funneling—I’m the funnel for the transportation of hideousness. The excretion, the passing, the releasing. This is correct. This is my fortitude. This is the sense. And there it is, presented to me. Its lucent red. The half-bitten. I steal the licorice, and history is mine.

I steal the licorice, and history is mine. Or is it? Do I have it now? Or does it have me? This stealing, this thievery. I’m stealing. But am I stealing, if it is mine? If it was mine before? If it was taken from me? What is mine? This redness is in my hands. The redness is stealing me. I’m stolen by its sweetness. The licorice, stolen from the plate, from the table, in the throat darkness, from me, from my hands. Is this stealing? Is this thievery? If not thievery, then must it be taking? Did I not take this licorice just moments ago? Did I not realize about my stealing? The sweetness I tasted moments ago—or maybe it was years?—and its return. Before I swallow the hideousness, I eat and swallow the licorice, and centuries pass before me, and after. I’m a vessel of visions, and the hideousness vanishes. Or has my perception of the hideousness vanished? Am I vanishing? The licorice and its sweetness reaches my stomach, and I’m a witness to the passing of centuries. The witnessing of thieveries. The seed has been planted in my lower. I harbor the secrets, my fingers left in the stickiness. I witness all of what has been stolen. The darkness’ throat watches me, waits. I sense its prowling, open my mouth, and the throat retracts like it’s been burned. A coiled snake. Oh. Whose body is that? Is it mine? In the shadows. In the corners. I see its slanting, its fixed position, its molecular movements. Its presence is sharp. The angulars. It’s looking at me. I cannot see all of it. Can it see all of me? It has been watching me for a long time. I know this. This darkness, this shape. What is my shape? I cannot look at what I’ve become, what I will become, what I became. I don’t know if I can find the relinquishing. I don’t know if I can understand it. The body, which breathes, and does not breathe, is made of stone, and bits crumble from its headlessness. The bits meet the wetness below and the wetness suckles the bits. It does not move, but its presence is wavering. How much of its body is my body, how much of my body is its? Do I dare move, to unsettle? The licorice, the escape, which I have eaten. Do I have my escape? What is the escape? The body and its chippedness, its specks. The magnitudes between us; the swallowing. In this moment, this convergence, are our bodies meeting collapse? Are our bodies stolen? Is the collapsing the stolenness? The stolenness, of our bodies, the collapse? And who rebuilds this collapse? The body has a message, and it transmits. I understand and foresee, and I look back. The collapse of the body, which is the disassemblage, the falling apart, of history. I cannot cope with this collapsing, this collapsing of history, yet whose history is it? The body tells me its secrets, the secrets of the collapse of history. What is my beginning and my end—my beginnings and ends. The swallowing of the licorice is the collapsing of history, and its seeding. The throat witnesses and knows nothing, and I know all. I’m surrendering. In the aftertaste of the licorice, of the sweetness, I surrender into the collapsing. The collapsing is the openings. The universes implode in my throat and my chest—history is collapsing within me. I witness its openings. The explosions of this moment, the space between the body and I, historical collapse. The body and I are closer together. I sense its vibrations and kinetics. The armlessness. The fillings and the emptiness. The want. I wish to be released. I’m entranced by its cut-offness, its severedness, its unspoken disposition. This body is not mine, nor am I its. What is this mineness? I’m captured in its watching. Oh this body—the crispness, the crumbling. The chipping away—of its body, of time, of my etchings. The closeness of us. Our histories merging. My melting, and my solidification. I’m coarse. The sharpness, the cutting, slicing through the dark air. The decapitation; I’m a headless statue—oh the deliciousness.