“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
-
it’s nights like these that i’m glad i don’t
own a gun
there’s a butchers knife in the kitchen
i heard that elliott smith had to stab himself twice
to make it last
i’m not sad enough for that
i’m sad enough for a gun
but not two stabs from a butchers knifeon my birthday i was born
and every year, to the day, since then
i’ve wondered why
i’ve wished upon a star every year, to the day
since then,
to not have beeni’m not two butchers knives
but i’m a gun, i’m a couple hundred pills
and if my fingers were electric motors
i’d drive them through
but i’m cartilage and bone
i’m a lonely skulli haven’t felt this way in a long time
i’m two large windows without a single screen
all i hope
is to feel this way again
(i mean, to live long enough, to feel this way again after feeling this way today, tonight, ends) -
i know you
why would i ever share me — with you?
i know what you say about people like mewhy would i ever let you close — to me?
i know what you do —why would i ever call you — family?
i know — -
the name of happiness
when a single Harper Adams dies
the earth of seeds & petals cry
a low and quiet cry:: cup your hands over your ears
to hear ::the lull of mindfulness we want to feel
in child’s pose
to drink the drink of happiness
from the yellow of the rosewhose name we say is meaningless
unto the content of its soul
but all we want is happiness
& all we do
is name
and name and name
even the naming of the rose -
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 -
it never occurred to me as a child
that I could even hope for life to be enjoyable
I was primed
(accidentally groomed, one might say)
to hate being alive
to think that the only thing really worth being
is dead & with jesus after it
& in heaven where
being alive might actually be niceit rarely occurs to me, even now,
that the greatest service I could do for GOD
is…well I guess I’m not sure I just…
I’m just trying to be 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 -
good for
“I don’t have to make you happy”
it startsand every thought since then has been
“why not”and every thought since then has been
a tiny dropa tiny drop on the well established order of
“I could never make anyone happy”
& “I am good for nothing”I do not know how these became the standard model
(that is not my business)but doctrines of complete depravity
I do not think helped“I don’t have to make you happy”
it says& “no one is asking you to”
replies& what this respondent does not know
is that I already know no one
is asking for
me to doanything
for themas I said, they are already certain
I am good for nothing. -
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 