notes from inside a cenote

Feb 25

Written By Dylan Atencio

A cenote’s a big hole in the ground

In case you didn’t know

Deep pool of warm water at the bottom

Made for a soft landing when I tripped and fell in

I think I tripped over myself

But hey look

An underchamber

Forgotten by the world

Vines dangling

Sapphires twinkling

Unexplored subterranean

Cool

Is there an echo down here?

Who said that

Oh I said that

Voice bouncing off the cavern walls

Though the reflection does sound a bit hollow

Upon reflection

Is there an echo down here?

Lagoon laps at the cracked stone

Frogs warbling

Symphony of beetles

An eel splashing somewhere over there I think idk you go find him if you want

There’s definitely an echo down here

Fingerpainted biofilm

Silicate waters

Luminant pillar plunging within

Blue blooded germ cells

Chemolithoautotrophs

Porous

Is there a feedback loop down here?

You’re live and on the air baby

iii

I’ve had a great time down here but

Hey so cenote this is never easy to say

Let me start again

Hey so cenote we’ve had our fun

Ahem

So look

Let’s face facts

This is neat and all

But I would never last down here

It’s been fun and all would love to stay and chat but it’s time I went

So long

Au revoir

Write often and bid ye well

Sayonara

Great now how do I get out of here

Sunlight’s fading

Chamber walls are glassy and slick

A slipnslide

But like not a real one ya know

Look at that gecko over there with his sticky feet

Bastard’s rubbing it in

Get a grip pilgrim

I haven’t got that sort of grip on things

Well if we don’t have a way out what do we have

Houston we have a predicament

Okay

Breathe

Let me just

Breathe

Let me just close my eyes and

Nope

I thought I could levitate meditate mediate my way up

The fatman under the bo tree could figure it out I’m sure I could too

But no dice

Let’s think on that

Looks like it’s gonna have to be the long game

Yes

The long game

Clammy dark

It’s hard to see down here

But your eyes adjust to the gloom with time

My eyes

Our eyes

No one’s

Whatever

Conjugation is hard when objects are fluid

But you need a hard object with fluid to conjugate

Conjugal visit

Down here? No

I know it’s on your mind you whore

Sorry whore is rude

You conniving

You

You narcissistic

You one note background extra machiavelli means to an end member of the public poor form philistine

I’m sorry

I didn’t mean any of that

I don’t think I said any of that actually

Is there an echo down here?

You’re nice

I can see your nice silhouette peering over the edge

Brimming with hybristophilia

Which is just prisoner lust but I know bigger words than you

Well bad idea hun

You’d come out smelling like mold and algae

Reeking of dread

Wait until I’m free on the surface

Then we’ll copulate and sweat like snowshoe hares in the Gobi Desert and bask in the sun in the shade of a juniper tree cloying words will drip from our lips like blood from the arterial vessels of the Romanovs and

Oh wait

You’re not even here

I’m talking to a cloud

I named the frog Descartes

It’s an inside joke you wouldn’t get it

Not a haha joke but more the universe is a joke joke

He ribbits at least someone finds it funny

I certainly don’t but nothing’s really funny anymore

Well actually everything’s funny

The sky is funny big blue canvas flicking on and off

Airplanes are funny metal box carrying apeman

The faint breeze is funny bumping of molecules elbow to elbow excuse me coming through I’m late for the jetstream

A leafy branch that wavers high above the everlasting everdimming everfarawaygrowinguntilit’sjustaspeckandyou’reaspecktoo aperture is

Well that’s just plain weird

The fish aren’t very funny

The eel is Jordan Peterson

He’s canadian dontcha know

vii

I’ve forgotten how to look up

That’s okay I can see just fine

I live inside a pinhole camera

I don’t see the world I see it in shapes flickering on the cavern walls at 220fps

I bet I could get Dolby Digital down here

Good enough

Better than good enough

Static and patterns in widescreen format that’s how the world’s always looked

Right?

Shut up the movie’s started

Oh it’s a rerun

viii

Strand of moss

Creeps across castellated limestone

Corrugated steel

Crisscrossed iron

Container on a container ship

Concrete

Karstic

Castle

Curtains

This is a metaphor for a prison if you didn’t get that already

Metaphor

Metaphor noun origin greek metapherein meaning to carry across which is appropriate because it got carried across the linguistic ocean with only a quick shore leave in latin and french and it’s like a simile that’s all grown up and off to college except that’s actually a simile because I used the word like

Like whoa dude

And you know what I don’t like? Metaphors

That the whole world is just the butt of a metaphor

Blue isn’t blue it’s the pool of water

Anger isn’t anger it’s the bats that didn’t eat today

Money isn’t money it’s the promise that the bats will eat tomorrow

Culture isn’t culture it’s the metaphysical manifestation of macrobiomes of spiders and mites spinning upon unseen filaments dangling above their final lot

Happiness isn’t happiness it’s

Green isn’t green it’s the frog and the moss but I’ve lost track of the moss where’d it go there it is

Am I a metaphor?

Ribbit ribbit

That means probably yes who knows

But this cenote’s just as real as you

Solipsistic cenote

Say that ten times fast

I said it a hundred because why the fuck not

Haha he said fuck

Right

I’ve lost the strand again

But that’s okay it only exists down here in the clammy castle

Time flows different here

No not flows but fizzles

Disperses

Fills the chamber

Mosaic of hopes memories stories ideals truths fictions first kisses final farewells all futures that collapse into one but that’s the one I didn’t predict so where did it come from and memories and stories again but not so much hope this time

Call it new circadian rhythms

Call it new causal domains

Call it fog

I disperse too

Scatter

Everybody scatter the cops are coming

Oh just kidding it’s not the cops it’s just the end of the universe

Phew I was worried for a second there

Anyway

Is that the sun going supernova off in the distance or is it just a firefly either way we’re finally getting some light down here

Just a pinprick though

A pinprick of light

One that zigzags haphazardly superluminary across the tangible white darkness

Okay wait pause the poem I’m gonna stop you right there

So two things

First

Superluminary? Nothing’s faster than the speed of light

Well that’s true unless

Unless

Unless nothing you’re being stupid nothing of substance can go that fast not even god can go that fast if he’s a part of the universe even his car can only go the highway speed limit

Second

You just plagiarized Helen Keller

This isn’t mania it’s just imagination wearing a fancy hat

Or is it

It’s not the same thing

Or is it

If something looks like something then is it something or is it a whole other something

Appearance is essence at least that’s what the swarm of beetles down here drones

And 50 million beetles can’t be wrong

Can’t be

Can’t

Kant

You see kids that was what we call an allusion

Anyway

Everybody’s got hats these days haven’t you heard

The bats are wearing wool caps to protect their little ears

The beetles have got their little commando helmets

Even JP the eel’s started wearing a beret

What are you wearing?

Well it’s chilly in the cenote so I’m wearing some goose down

Who are you wearing?

Well mostly I’m wearing myself down

But hey I’ve got a five panel hat so that’s cool

It’s water wicking

I’m going to run out of water

Not soon but eventually

The fish keep drinking it up glug glug

What I really need is a flood

Or a monsoon or a heavy rainfall

Yes raindrops from clouds from oceans from rivers from glaciers from snow from clouds from oceans from times before all this ever happened

Before all what

Before the earth was an ant farm

Before the quest of the gallant sir timbernersly

Before we were ever living in caves

Yes raindrops that aren’t cleansing and comfort and sorrow and renewal beating out a staccato symphony on a tin roof

Raindrops that are just rain

Then it fills up the cavern

Then I just stay afloat until I burst from the surface pop out like a whackamole

You can’t tread water for that long

Yes I can no you can’t

Yes I will

I doubt it

Ribbit

Yes I have to

You have to? Well that’s a whole other issue go talk to JP about it although fyi he’s french these days and started chainsmoking

Hm I don’t really like secondhand smoke much less secondhand epiphanies

But anyway

Weren’t we having an argument

Were we?

That’s fine if we are but make sure to cite your sources this time

Formulate your thesis statement by distilling your main contention into a clear concise sentence

Make your point by utilizing facts instead of leveraging rhetorical devices

You know who uses rhetorical devices? A con man

Your mum’s a rhetorical device

Oh haha that’s a joke

Haha

Here’s one for you

Someone once asked me to name two structures that hold water and I was like well damn that’s an odd question but first let’s talk about what it even means to be a structure

Like what’s the structure of your argument and is it load bearing and can I climb it out of here

No? Oh well worth trying

xii

Let’s get out of here

Your place or mine trick question it’s always mine

Okay good no better no way better I’m looking forward to it but what’s tricky is that I’m still down here and it’s no good no better no way I’m looking forward to it actually

We can set things straight in a bit let me just get out of here first

People get out of things all the time right?

How did people in oubliettes get out

Well they didn’t that was the whole point they were forgotten it were the concept of forgetting made real by stone and screams so no use to me so let’s move on

How do people get out of famine and strife and apartheid

Well they become the recipients of global attention and peacecorps and unicef so no use to me so let’s move on

People escape things all the time right?

How do people escape holy wars and shantytowns and hate and wartorn hills and forests where they once played hide and seek and capture the flag more like capture the infidel make an example a threat to those who dare to dream to whisper even a word of peace

Well they normally don’t so no use to me so let’s move on

Wait

Stop

Don’t move on

That’s crazy

That’s tragic

That’s so heavy that

Wait

I just floated for a second

Either that or the earth dropped out from under me

Excuse me

Pardon

Waiter there’s an unexpected but not wholly unfamiliar sensation in my soup

What is this feeling

Sorry no that’s a question and an answer I’ll add punctuation

What is this? Feeling

Feeling like I’ve forgotten my self

Feeling for handholds and finding none

Feeling for others in more chasmic holes than me

Feeling what is it again

What’s that word again

Emphasis empanada empty empedocles emperor penguin empirical truth emphysema emparadise I’ll dance around it for as long as I have to

Feeling like I’ve forgotten there’s nothing to forget in the first place

Feels weird man

xiii

You know the thing about the world

Wait really?

How do you know?

I certainly don’t

I’m impressed by your conviction can I borrow it for a while

See since my own conviction I’ve lost my conviction and I no longer have the conviction to seek conviction but at least I have my convictions

That made sense I promise

Let me tell you what doesn’t make sense

Well

Better not

I’d run out of ink and time and space and space down here is tight to begin with

Maybe I can marie kondo this place

I don’t know who that is though

Let me tell you what I don’t know

I don’t know the gobi desert

I don’t know helen keller

I don’t know greek etymology I don’t know the speed of light or frogs I don’t know framerate of the human eye humanitarian crises or hat styles I don’t know solipsism sartre kant plato’s cave proper punctuation or lack thereof

But fake it til you make it they always say

So if I can’t scale my way out of here

Maybe I can scheme my way out of here

Maybe I can con my way out of here

The long con

The long game

I guess I should come clean

This wasn’t a poem

It was a grift

Oh this is the part where I tell you that you were the mark

Yes hi hello you sitting there

Yes you with your eyes transfixed upon the page before you

You with your mind drifting down into this subterranean lair

You who shudders as we reach 合流 which is pronounced gōryū and means confluence but now my attempt at a rhyme scheme’s all screwed up because I had to explain it to you but I guess this is the third act exposition monologue anyway and all bets are off

You with your breath now feeling heavy and humid and stifling

You who now has a part of me

You

See I can break the fourth wall as much as I want cuz I don’t even know I’m doing it

I don’t even know

I don’t know

I don’t

I don’t think the con worked

Because allegories and loose mental associations fray quickly and don’t make for a strong rope

Because the transmutation of abstract experience into formalized literary structures ain’t the same as a ladder

Because I hurled a grappling hook of rhetorical devices over the edge and snared it on a visceral reaction but that’s all just imagery and doesn’t mean anything in a concrete sense

And you know who uses rhetorical devices? A con man

A narcissistic

A one note machiavelli means to an end ethical philanderer philistine

I’m sorry

I’ll just let you be

I’ll just

I’ll just go

Just go

…

Just

…

It’s quiet

…

Echoes in the cenote

…

Kinda nice

…

Let’s think on that

…

No actually

…

Let’s not

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An insect lands on my shoulder

One on my nose

My cheek

Wait

No.

It’s rain.

2-25-26

Dylan Atencio

notes from inside a cenote

lolita

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