Jorge the Giant

Brian Oliu

 

Because when someone is the tallest person you’ve ever seen, you wish them taller. There is no reason to be exact in a world where we believe that a man has come back from the dead, that there are brothers born in fire, that you can put to sleep someone who has seen the other side of living. I have done this to the point where I do not know what my actual height is anymore: the same way we are quick to answer when someone asks us our name, what city we sleep in. There is a belief that the human brain can convince itself of a lie so thoroughly that it believes it is telling the truth. I cannot remember where I heard this, so this may not be true. I do not know the term for telling the world you are one thing when you are the other. If I am telling you a lie I believe to be true, you cannot call me a liar. Check the indents in the mattress. Measure from the crown of the head to the floor. Let us imagine a city where the hair on your chest is real; that the top of your skull is that many inches closer to God.

 

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is the author of two chapbooks and four full-length collections, most recently the lyric-memoir “i/o” (Civil Coping Mechanisms) and the collection of essays “Enter Your Initials For Record Keeping” (Cobalt Press). Recent essays appear in The Collagist, Catapult, The Rumpus, Runner’s World, and elsewhere.