oh undress thy tender ears!
put the scars from thy headset
out there to the noise,
thy urban ears have been coddled
for too long

i haven’t heard my city in a long time, but i decided to be a radical listener for once and have a sonic meditation, if you will — or a sonic attack. 

1.

chirping is what drives my ears crazy. i know nothing about birds but chirping and twittering is all i can hear. bird communication drilling into my brain like a charming melody of buttons and keynotes pressed and clicked, and the screen uploading my online revolution. sometimes i get so paranoid i can hear birds inside my apartment. those tiny government angels tweeting plots and allegations into my ear while i’m asleep or masturbating.

on most days i imagine that they are invisible air-to-ground seraphs who transmit sensitive data through a mesh network and guard sad activists — like myself.

it’s called CHIRP for a reason, and my darling sparrows, pigeons and chickadees are the only reliable radio software. an angelic software. 

i can’t help but think about the drones, they also fly and chirp.

2.

the city is the sea, and my apartment is a cliff surrounded by sirens. the waves are plane engines and wings.

a year ago i started hearing planes everywhere i went, it’s only gotten worse and now, when a plane is taking off, i feel like a wave is crushing at me. like the sky is opening its womb and a huge monster is pushing a baby through. the fading trails remind me of emigration, the growl reminds me of fleeing.

the planes going above my house are leaving for the world filthed by propaganda — the world of faggots, perverts, high taxes, small houses, and women dominating miserable men. so, every time i’m wondering whether the plane is full of affluent bastards going on a three-day no-strings-attached, no-sanctions, no-wounded-soldiers spree, or my friends with little backpacks where their entire lives have been squeezed, desperate for freedom. i know it’s always both.

3.

i am a shazam tuned to violence and persecution.

it’s a subtle game of telling between screams of domestic violence and swings in the yard, between a construction site and a strategic drone attack, between a bee bumping into glass and a picklock in the keyhole, between a pop remix and an invitation to become war criminals. between communal services, firefighters, ambulance — and the police. between the men who are just disappointed and those who have been to war. between the leaves’ rustle and a windowless plateless truck approaching from the back. 

the only thing that shazam cannot identify is silence — the scariest of all noises.

we comfort ourselves by listening closely, listening vigilantly, and turning our internal alerts on and off, but the real messenger is the silence. the real harbinger. the horseman.

4.

inter arma enim silent leges. inter arma silent musae. in civitate homines audiunt.