this is just something i wrote after a had a conversation which made me doubt everything that has ever existed and will exist. only consolation was that the conversation was held with a cute longboarding boy on a nice green lawn on a sunny day. also this is rudimentary and stupid but i feel like i need to post something up for you guys
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twenty kids in a philosophy class
desk edges clutched with pale hands
chattering pencils
hipster glasses
so many questions their heads hurt
is determinism real
are we fated or are we free
(what the fuck, sophocles)
is destiny
real
linear time, the eternal moment
it’s 12:50
back to the real world
walk out into the sun, shrug off your jacket
see him skating your way, wave hello,
find a patch on the grass.
talk.
under the trees with crisscrossing leaves that shield you
from a sun so far away yet so close
talk
because that is all you can do
talk
because we’re not one of them
we are not new
we are not brave
we are the old, the changing, the running, the scared
and we know it
and you think about twenty kids in a philosophy class
who talk
and yet it makes no difference
the sun does not make any more sense
the leaves rustle in the same way
time is linear, marching straight on from where we came,
marching straight on to where we’re going,
and his face is strange when he says,
pulling on a blade of grass,
‘well, you know what they say
let go, or be dragged.’
because you’re confused
because you always thought that if you tinted things a certain way
life would be easier
because you always thought that if you found that place to burrow away in
life would be simpler
because you believed you wouldn’t make the same mistakes
but in that belief
you did
because the tint has to change
let go, or be dragged
(ancient chinese proverb)
and you want to lie down in the grass, cover yourself,
munch on the leaves, build a cocoon,
never come out,
but then you wouldn’t see the reflection in his eyes that says he would do the same,
but instead we’re all out here,
climbing trees and telling bad jokes from south park,
trying to paint, aiming our bows at something new,
we’re all just
here
and nowhere else,
we’ve come here from far away,
from here we will go somewhere far away,
but for now, we are
not new
not brave,
just hoping to someday have somebody apart from ourselves
we can save.
we miss the target more often than we hit it,
but, wherever they land,
our arrows will always point to the center of the universe
YOU ARE READING
Aquarium Friday and Other Stories
PoetryAn ode to my poetic incompetence. This collection consists of five poems and one short story, Aquarium Friday.