“some people aren’t alive”
when I sit to write
is all I can think
“some people aren’t alive”
when I sit to write
when I sit to think
— it’s all I can
“some people aren’t even alive”
and I am
-
with regard to losing everything
i was always going to die
some people are never born againi was always going to lose everything
think i’m lucky to be alive for ityou can be born as many times as you want
without asking anyonei was always going to die
some people are never born again -
spirit of eternity
the spirit of eternity is milky
it is from the breast when we are children
and then we give it upit is a heavy cream
we circle into coffee
and then forgetoh spirit of eternity, we pray
come to us
unfold our notion of ‘a day’oh spirit of eternity, we plea
remember us
as we await to enter theefor your face is long as a sheet
and cold as a galaxy
your words are the sky in the evening
and the earth when we sleepspirit of eternity
you are what we all hope to be:
the stillness
that brought us into being
and the push
that our mothers startwe won’t be finished in our graves
and we have you, we will always have you,
to thank -
does my body know
why am I in so much pain
my body aches
does my body know
what my heart’s been through?I want an algorithm to stitch me in a sonnet
I want to be pretty but my mind and words I think are ruinedmy esophagus keeps closing
it is hard to breathe
& hard to breathe
and my esophagus is closingit’s like my body wants to shut me up
but I find other ways
to say my peace
and ruin thingsI want to be pretty & grieve
and lie and cheat and steal for good reasons
I want to be so transcendentally things
that everything I know and believe translates into me
I could read their mind and know
they heard me out and understood
and there would be no judgement
when I am everything
because knowing all the good reasons we got here
would get us all the good will we’d need to leaveleave suffering
and ecstasies
and everything
in betweenso that every experience takes on equal incandescent degrees and specificity
takes on all the meaning an experience could ever beit is not a game of raising up
or thinking more highly of
it is to dispose of scales completely
it is not a flattening
it is where no two things have any two points of comparison
where each experience takes on its own complete dimensionalitybetter and worse lose application
I know this is just the sort of thing one might expect to find in poetry…
it’s just… I’m sick and throbbing and all I want is to stop wishing I wasn’t -
oh that was before the end
oh that was before the end
a whirl dies down
my family and them at some event
some picture I’m not in
I can’t recall the final time
& dates don’t help
forever
I said
eternity in my heart I meant
I heard GOD’s present moment is big
so big my past and future fit in it
I hate GOD
or
I hate being GOD
I hate having back the present moments I passed
I cannot know whoever they are now
I hate how when I am GOD I already know where this is going
I hate being GOD and sitting on my hands to keep from putting the world I want togetherI don’t want them free
I don’t like knowing someone said they loved me and will never say it againthe only thing I like about GOD might be not changing
if I cut my hair I am another person
the old is passing and the new still becomingall of this before the end
one which I still cannot tell is ever coming -
i have this reoccurring dream
that judah is still alive and all of us
in his inner circle of friends
know well he is alive and we try to respect his decision to fake his own death
and then, in the dream, i find out he really has died
maybe a car accident or something usual
or i run into him in a grocery store or something
and he nervously says hi and gives me the deepest and most sincere stare i’ve seen and I know he’s requesting that I not tell anyone he’s alive
but then, like I said, I always find out later he died. like actually died
and when i find out i always think i wasted what time i had left with him
it’s as if even if he was still alive
what exactly do i think i would do so differently?
i’m not sure.. and i’d say i hate the dream except that the beginning of it always feels so nice.. -
wednesday
@paigers_21 Very light and wet rumble
between me and the earth
and on which side is GOD?
Am I nearer or
do all GOD’s lovers draw GOD in?I could see things I think
in a frame out a window — sure
but it is Wednesday and
GOD like the earth
obscures the view
of the beginning and the end
of the parts of the week I care at all for.I bet the clouds crunch
so goddamn loud
to force a hundred people through the clouds.Why do I know when I land
I’ll have all the same questions
and ugly little answers
for the hot metal motors
locked up in the sky
and the pretending-to-be-comfortable clouds
surrounding my mind.Why when I die will I know
what I only ever wanted to know
when I was alive. -
*some people i love are dead*
some people i love are dead
i recall
just when i begin to hate my experience
my experience of lethargy
of apathy
of a cold cool depressive state
where i look through all of my belongings
and find nothing
as some people i love are dead
so for them
there is no experience
none at all to wish they were not in
none to long for
none even to recall
for me, at least, i think
i prefer this to that
i would rather crawl into a slow ball completely spent
i would rather wring my hands in longing for
the faith i used to have
i would rather use all of my attention to ensure i am taking at least one more
(and one more)
than not breathe at all
than give it all
than lose any possible chance to see again
someone that i love
and feel loved again
by them -
the purpose of life
it’s hard to see how life could really be about anything other than just enjoying it
people who will try to sell you on being alive for a whole eternity
but I feel like they are assuming that being alive at all is at least some sort of net positive
and even if they imagine that, after this life end, the next life will be markedly better
they are still relying on our minds having some available cognitive real estate upon which to locate such a fanciful view of alivefor if we already enjoy being alive, before someone has even tried to sell us on an eternity of it, well
then I think there is nothing left for them to sellI think once we enjoy life and, I mean, actually living and being alive
as in, right now
right now being alive
I think once we enjoy it we can feel that its enjoyment has completed everything
we find in ourselves no desire either to speed it along or to stretch it out
because, at last, its purpose has been completely fulfilled
by, of course,
our merely enjoying it -
my reasons to live expire
like ingredients you buy for a meal you never make
my reasons to live expireand I,
my blood and bones,
expire tooone just has to time it right, I think
to die before our reasons doI’d hold out longer
if I had any reason toI’ve run the calculous
over and over nowthat nearing me is painful
so what better way to keep everyone who loves me
at a safe distanceI have a language that I can speak
but it isn’t englishby the time I go to work tomorrow
I’ll forget why I haven’t quitI’ll wonder, like I always do,
why they ever settled for me in this positionand I’ll decide to do what they always wanted
but never knew how to ask forI can’t afford lunch
I can’t afford lunchmy lease is up
I can’t afford lunchthe descending lit up numbers of the elevator
I’m trying to see some daylightit’s overcast
I don’t know what to do with my cats
I’m trying to see some daylightevery crack in the pavement collects little rocks in them
I’m trying to see some daylightthe beautiful Nigerian on the sidewalk
we barely scrape some eye contact
they are barely not starving to death
no exercise of gratitude could cancel thisI’d like to starve to death, once
to know, finally, what it will be like
for the universe
once we string outthe shirt I wore is too warm
these big headphones, too warm
I want to starve to death
I’m trying to see some daylight
I can’t afford lunch
my blood and bones
expire
and my reasons to live
and my reasons to live
too
nathanael.ink 