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]
i’ve ignored the outside
for too long
for not long enough
it’s still impacting me
it’s still making its way inside
what’s wrong with living a life
pretending
all of humanity
is actually
kind?
[can “fake it till you make it”
apply to expectations
of others?]
waking moments
still stuck in dreams
trying to keep track of
what is reality
and what might not be
and what makes sense to me
is that there is not any one solid answer
it’s all just chemical reactions and brain synapses
trying to make sense of a world that just
doesn’t
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]
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
creation mixes magic
with science
and i think you’ll find
we’re all adept
at both
[if we just believe]
create
creativity
or you’ll die from
lacking
a human need
maybe
someday
i’ll feel like
a human
i am a smattering of choices
in an aging human body
decorated so i feel more real
and interacting with the world
even though sometimes
i wish i
wouldn’t
i feel my ability
to create
has been sucked dry
by a cabinet that has yet
to even take power
and i don’t want to let it
the universe deserves art
art is what makes life worth living
it doesn’t even have to be spectacular, world-paradigm-shifting/
perspective-altering/makes-you-see-new-colors-on-earth
great
art
it just needs to be art
because every human is creative
and every human deserves to look at something
and feel —
even if that feeling is
‘i want to do that’
for inspiration
or for competition
or for proving something —
art takes humanity,
splits it into a thousand pieces,
and connects every piece of us
back with each other
and even if we only ever see two or three pieces
of ourselves
connect with others in our lifetime,
those pieces continue on:
in your stories to the friends you make later,
in one audience member’s recollection,
in your peers’ inspiration
and on to making their own creations
we all continue to live through our art
because humanity
is connection
and connection
is art
and art
is humanity
and all reversed and back again
and we cannot survive
as a species
without our art, our connection, and our humanity
so please, as defeated as you feel, artists, keep art-ing
i will
i just need to stream these feels into my art
first
and then maybe this poem will reside in the heart of someone else
who will help someone else
continue on
and
on
and
on
it
goes
kipventures 