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
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?]
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?]
i think my lot in life
is to fight fascism with
art
humanity
and softness
i don’t know how much of an impact i can make
but i can make you think about the fact that i don’t consider
fascists
humans
and perhaps that’s enough to get our brains working on critical thinking once more
eradicate one war
and we’ll throw a tantrum on the oval office floor
because we’re all just children
trying to impress daddy
trying to get back the love we never found
and we think that adoration is one step above
and fear another
but inside, those who start wars
are empty inside
and just trying to fill their own souls’ holes
with explosions of others’
i can’t teach the lessons
that they’ll never learn even from their own experiences
but i can make sure i never forget
my own humanity
and empathy
in any part of my life inside me
[and that’s why i vote with my conscience
for those with a
conscience]
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
observing humanity
in an emergency
department
[but i should probably be
eating some sort of snack
to make my own humanity
a little bit
even-er]
hiding
or fighting
a fascist dictatorship
a takeover of/from
what once called itself
the paradigm of democracy
and we the people
somehow
voted this power-monger in
[though, with wealth, it’s easy enough
to turn the tides of an election
with tactics on either side
of the line of
voter fraud]
but what do we do
when our numbers mean so little
against media takeovers and social distractions
and virtue signaling and in-fighting?
a revolution is at hand
but the powerful seem to have control
over literally everything
[we’ve been here before —
we, as a species —
perhaps the technology is new,
but i’m certain
i’m certain
the despair and feeling of powerlessness
has all happened
and will all happen
again
and again
and again and again and again
because humans hunger for power
almost as much as they hunger for community
it’s just
will we learn
from our past
or not?]
kipventures 