CALL 555-3232


︎︎︎ Blair Costello

︎ Nov 12, 2024

“Our flesh is like a TV set and our consciousness is the signal.   
The signal still exists even when the TV set is broken. The   
consciousness of human beings is a kind of energy and it   
will never diminish.”   
                    – Chen, M. (Near Death Experiencer)   


pick up the cordless phone and dial five five five — thirty-two, thirty-two.
it's a memory-hole hotline to heaven. just listen. the apostles are calling you
with angel number erotica — everyday / everywhere — a spirit numerology
where i am not my body but a body that swallows light, ignited tonight
in a flickering screen, just look and see: televangelists for your eyes only.
they're speaking tongue for adult eyes only
saying what's so lonely about swallowing love.

what's so lonely about a night of phone sex conversion therapy.
call the hotline. phone fantasy. whisper sweet Magdalenes until
it's all just light upon light upon light dip on light to dip inside the voice
of a call-girl on the receiving end, skinny dipping in a baptism so blue
where none of the waves were ever body, all of this ocean roar
and nothing wants me, so i dial 555-3232 and i speak to the angels:

seraphim, all blonde with stripper hair,
and i pull at the tarot and i say for all of me that is spirit-cord —
take me and swallow me in a rain of crusader swords.



Blair Costello is a writer. His work has appeared in SWAMP, Misery Tourism, and Expat Press (forthcoming).