Thyroid

Where-are-you-headed-so-late-at-night, and I answer, do we know each other? no-not-yet, but why do I stop, why does the stranger's face tempt me, resemblance to a forgotten wish, undefined, borderless, shrunken wish, I always take what is presented to me, fake pearls, praised as a sensational find,

my-name-is-Oskar, he says and holds out his hand,

I'm trying to think of a name for myself, frozen and amazed, Sie-or-du¹, he asks in his beautiful coat, balancing on an expensive bicycle, he would be quick if I ran away, du-or-Sie?, he doesn't stop, the traffic light long turned green, I'm still standing here counting the lit windows, is he just looking for a counterpart or why me of all people, trace and erase, until the paper tears, I'm already taken, it spills over my lips, rude and yet mesmerized, I-wasn’t-thinking-of-that-at-all, I just wanted to make it clear from the start, and I still won’t give a name,

structure is an attribute of being, so they say, how else are you supposed to play

an orchestral piece, function-is-an-attribute-of-structure, he says, in most cases, I reply, and nobody walks by, nobody stops at the traffic light, no bicycle, no car, between red and green five seconds of yellow, no one intervenes, no one forces me to take a step closer to him,

I throw word for word over my right shoulder,

impossible trace through the thicket of the unknown, the ravens are waiting, the breadcrumbs lying brightly on the asphalt, who carries around pebbles, pearls before swine, only in an emergency, but that's no trace, nobody wants to follow a spendthrift,

every step backwards would be a tearing out, I don't

want to hurt the stranger, rather be abandoned than abandon, so late at night, on the quiet street, the traffic lights mirrors, imitating each other, obsessive twins, brackets and accolades with a mathematical purpose, who stops and who has to go, a dance at the crossroads, du-or-Sie?,

he says he plays in an orchestra, are-you-a-

musician, I ask, no-no, but-maybe-one-day, I-have-a-bread-job, if music were made from the blink of an eye, every butterfly’s flight would be galley-work, so who sings instead of speaking,

I have halted, caught in the net of his eye, strange

eye, evil eye, the little child follows everyone who winks at them, and smiles, believes everyone who makes promises and breaks them, but holds on, the little arm, the little dress, never follow a stranger, I was told, but where does the land of strangers begin, what does the language sound like that I'm not allowed to learn, what does the writing look like that I don't understand, all the hooks, like gestures, letters drawn together, like the forehead, which creases, eyebrows coming closer, who can still hear a word in all of that,

but the stranger smiles, the dress is mirrored in his eyes, he smooths it down, that’s

nothing evil, I walk towards him and move the border at the same time, so everything remains allowed, even stroking, it is nice and it doesn’t hurt, perhaps he is like me, he saw it in my slightly lowered chin, in my thumbs, which I’m hiding in my fists, because it's not the beautiful that counts, but the weak, that's the real trophy, who else would walk up to the good, maybe a little poison is missing right now, a little shade, even now, at night, the tempting, unknown way, fear and curiosity share one bed, he holds out his hand, I give him mine,

and run, run, it will not end well, where does disaster begin, where does the colour turn

over, litmus-test for evil, or isn't all seduction evil?, one always knows less than the other, come-to-me, I-want-to-show-you-something, one thinks of the way out that the stranger may know, of key and solution that one has not yet found, of the song he is humming,

I stretch out my hand and he puts everything in my hand, knife and gun and rope,

everything I fear, he directs my gaze in the opposite direction, to the concave mirror at the crossroads, I see myself, I see my gaze, how it falls back on me, with all its might, turned over, the colour of the good, the weak, with his filter-conscience,

the good eats its way through Yes and No, it clumps, it blocks up path and corridor,

hardens everything that lives and tears before it gives way, dies before it forgives, even evil is nothing when it is among its own kind, without the mirror it's just a rest, rubbish and remnant, rear-guard, king in no man's land, without a single stranger, far and wide only confidants who call to him, cheer him and say everything is fine —