when lying on your deathbed
with your last breath
you can’t take it with you —
power accrued
wealth amassed
bodies stylized
any of that
what stays with you is
love
and
your acceptance of self
i’ve seen the love in a room
carry a soul
to whatever comes next
and i know when i die
i may have some small regrets
but you’ll never find me regretting
the person i’ve become
so what
is the point
of what so much of humanity
has
done?
distract yourself with crimson glaze
with pink chiffon
with aesthetics and
art
[is art a distraction?
or is it a human need?]
[or is distraction itself
sometimes
a need?]
[i don’t know
i don’t know
i try to speak for
the entirety of the human race
but so few of them make any sense
to my own senses
that i’m simply trying to
live life
i’m simply trying to
continue to
want to live life
keep life
going
i’m simply trying to
try
sometimes
not even all the time
just
sometimes
sometimes sometimes
sometimes be my own human self
sometimes try to speak for
those in the human race that today’s humanity
seems to leave behind
sometimes try to
connect with others
in a way that
raises both parties up
from one level of existence
to another
greater
kinder
more enlightened
not to be better than others
but to carry everyone
with us — if i share enlightenment with three people
and each of them share with
three more
how long until we have all of humanity
together
and looking out for
each other?]
this rambling poem
is to say
as much as i feel like i
will never understand the
rest of the human race, i keep making art
for them for them for them
for the connection to get to know them
and have them know me
i can’t help it
that’s part of living as/with
humanity
writing about things
about losing
and possibly gaining
[about gaming the system
that seems incapable of collapsing
without dire consequences]
about consequential
and inconsequential
choices
for our own choices
will always always always bring
something
to our own lives
but in the grand schemes of planets and universes and stars
what is one
human’s
mistake
[what is one species’
constant
blunder?]
down that coffee
chug that water
sprint down the stairs and
get ready for the day ahead
today
today
it will be
a day
[still kind of on
vacay
and spending time with kip
continuing traditions
and making new
and just do it
just get excited
and run run outrun the seasonal
depression
slowly invading your
head]
~~~
how come
this past
holiday season
i was unable to find
any
goddamn
candy canes
[of the candy cane flavor
variety]
?
[i found plenty
of skittles-flavored candy canes
and candy cane flavored
other things
but absolutely
zero
candy cane flavored
candy canes]
where did they all go?
has capitalism forced creativity
beyond our human wants and desires?
probably.
almost
definitely.
[well, at least our ai overlords
can enjoy the absurdity of our
‘ingenuity’
atop our burning bodies
after the world catches on fire
and the only water left
not contributing to coastal flooding
is being fed to them]
~~~
the problem
the problem
the problem is
i know
i know
i know our apocalypse
will be
so
so
so
slow
we won’t see it coming
we won’t acknowledge it here
we’ll just keep hoofing it to work
and buying our bagels
as our eyes slide past
broken infrastructure
and bodies in the street
until we’re about to be the body
and by then
it’ll be
too late
[and another person will walk past you
pretending
everything
everything
everything
is normal]
every day
i learn something new
or see something in a way i
never knew to look at
and perhaps that’s the point of being human
or at least the point
of calling myself
a poet
the everyday tasks
of being alive
[why is feeding one’s body so much more important
in our society
than feeding one’s soul?]
impart my own passions to me
and i’ll show you how cheap food can taste
when it is only for the nourishment
of keeping oneself alive
[i, along with every human deep down, wish more to
Thrive]
half asleep
half awake
half in love with
half the people
here on half this earth
[though i love the whole planet
like i can’t get away from
my own desires, crying when i see
a single beam of sun
encroach over the horizon
of a view i’ve never seen in real life/
or simply the leaves of trees
i always see
but rarely really
look at
on my daily commute
using human infrastructure
and human pathways
to get to human-created endeavors
and human-built buildings
but right here
are magics
we could never
ever
ever begin to
develop on our own
without the pathways led to us
for us
from the
earth]
every
single thing
on this planet
is so fucking special
i cannot
cannot
get over it
[this could include
humans
and humanity…
does it?]
write what you know
and then write it a little farther away
using metaphor
or simile
or narrative tactics
that make it seem
like it may not be about your life
at least not completely
but we all know
we all know
every writer carries hundreds
if not thousands
if not millions or billions or trillions of
selves
with them at all times
[or is that just every human
as we live and grow and change and morph
into each of our
many
many
many
final forms]
so interesting how
being in one’s 30’s feels
like settling into the person you
were before testing out all the other life things
i’m hungry for experiences
but i need only try something
once
and then i’m happy to go back
and just cuddle my kip and my cat and my dog
and organize books alphabetically
and wake up each morning
to write poetry
[i do wonder if this is the true 9-year-old me, but i also have to admit,
i still have that 9-year-old inside me, plus the 16-year-old who couldn’t
help but immediately drive to see friends the moment they got their
license, and the 22-year-old who just really wanted connection with
whomever would connect with me. i think it’s always been, not about
partying, but about connection. and i also think 9-year-old me
would agree.]
how can there be
so much horror in the world
alongside such beauty?
how can death happen one day
and the next, the miracle of a whole new life?
how can those celebrating a graduation/
a union/
pure friendship
be next door to
domestic violent terror
in one’s own home?
i haven’t figured out yet
how to be a happy person
while also knowing
so much that happens behind
tightly closed doors
in front of
tightly shut eyes
because, from my position here,
it feels counterintuitive —
i’m trapped in feeling like
one thing cannot be acknowledged
if the other isn’t also
but perhaps that’s my own black and white
fault
thinking
because there’s also
often
mundane day happening
alongside mundane day
and it’s the grey that
somehow
sometimes
keeps us going
kipventures 