if all my best poems are only said in private
because i am in love
if the best i have to say
is only said to her
if i waste my best thoughts
in silent conversations
it will not be a waste
i will still be heard
because i am in love
-
Mark 15:13
If you think we would not again
you do not understand us
& worse
you do not understand Him.I know
I watched Him starve to death
while we argued about gun rights.I watched Him freeze
while we wondered if He was only poor
from being lazy
or incompetent.He came back to life one time
is that why we let Him die?
Now a hundred thousand more times?We cannot be bothered to find Him food or shelter
at the drive-thru line
nor even vote for it
on a ballot.You have Moses and the prophets
and the entire work of Christ
and still do not believe?neither shall you believe
were this for you
to read -
shower me in praise
maybe then
i’ll be happykeep it up
ad infinitumso i can stay happy
so i won’t forget
that i am worth beingshower me in praise
so i don’t have to myself
and feel like a narcissist doing itshower me so that i can bathe in the resulting stream
so that i can wash off self hatred
so that i can stop feeling so much pressure
to be creativeso that on some days
i can just wake up
and move from point A
to point B
and not have to make it mean a goddamn thingshower me until i drown
until i swallow it
until i choke on itshower me
until i don’t need itplease
[and if the poets do not eek out all the words
who willfor this?]
-
in response to the fear of missing out
When we will know everything we are missing out on
It will make us here.
It will drown our appetite for it
& leave us // at last // I think here.We will see // and be forced to see
there is always a reason
auroras escape usfor when I looked, they were not there
& when I looked away, they appeared.The News reported early
that what I failed to see in Iceland (despite it being the perfect season)
appeared above me while I was busy
in Missouri.& why was I busy?
& should I regret?
or can I see that there are always beautiful things
I am not seeing.
& can I see
that what I was busy doing
is just the sort of beautiful thing
no one else will ever see?
For when we finally know everything we have missed out on
we will collapse in noticing
that every argument in our head
every little wish we ever had
& toothpaste drip we saw hit the sink
& hair-brush stuck in our knots
& the thought you had that finally made sense of everything
which you forgot
& the precise experience of hope you had once
which you lost
//no one else, ever, under any circumstance
not through any number of scientific or technological advances
// you can be certain // there is an exactly zero percent chance that anyone else
will ever have them
your experiences
they will miss out
on the kinds of details that would make some photographer weep if she could capture them
the sort that every French film is dying to recreate
the ones the greatest novels make us think about
and suddenly love.
we will all // everyone who isn’t you
will miss out
and each one of us is an entire universe like this
you are the auroras I will never see
the details I would want to know, you cannot recall
but you went through them all
you experienced every single one of them in the most explicit and exacting possible way
in the first person
& I can never have thatAnd so I continue to exist
living everyday
knowing some seven billion auroras, I must (for all intents and purposes)
ignore.& in response to this the best thing I find for me to do
is to do what I can
to not ignore mineand to share what I can of mine
with you
-
“Cannot we just always be happy?”
If there were nothing in the mourning
we could not have at peace
then I’d agreeas it is
I think
compassion only grows in grief
compassion only learns another’s name
suffering.“What about a world with no suffering? Is that not the place compassion too compels us toward? Is it, therefore, no holy aim?”
I’ll answer.
Once compassion finds
compassion’s aiming end — it obliterates
& all its excess energy imparts
itself to life
and living it. -
nonetheeverlovingless
it matters
// the distinctionbetween knowing
I have all the right beliefs
&
knowing I do not have to have thembetween trusting
what I believe about a person
and
actually trusting themI would fail
examinations
// her favorite color
her only place she feels at home
what every word
her friends say she has sometime said
and what I make
and memorize
of themand CHRIST too
I am positioned to accept
that I got every fact // got it all
almost completely wrong
nonetheless
and // and
nonethe //everloving
less
I would trust &
everloving
love
THEM
nonetheeverlovingless -
on the experience of grief over time
i experience him gone
but then
i experience him heregrief makes me know
it is like the physicist says
& grief makes me experience it
how time could all be equally real
& no illusions
as past and future never collapse
instead, it is that grief can make my present growthe mystics make it sound so odd
but everyone who has lost someone
who has ever held a ghost
everyone who has ever loved and notices how wrong it is to say
to say “loved” in the past tense // knows
they know
how grief makes the present grow
engulfing our entire lived experience
and pulling in the future too
the future we already know
we know will have the same
the same cavity where they should be
we experience it
in the growing of our griefand so we grieve it all at once
from the last look on their face
to the death of the universe -
our stories
evaporate // all
keep holding out
wishing it to be
eventually
we can wish
everlastingness
what I mean is
all we will ever be
is the story of today
and whether or not
it gets permission
to mean a fucking thing
in us
how many empires
must we see dissolve
until it settles in
that there is no permanence
permanence we keep living our entire lives
thinking of
dreaming up
undying all our buried pains to get us there
our stories all
evaporate
and what is left after that?
I think
is the great Nothingness
who has spent our entire lives telling us
do not hurry along
do not dream of it
do not wish your present moment away
I have held this gate
and this great eternal megaphone // screaming
you are missing everything
wishing for Me
our great suffering // I think
is exactly the sort of thing
we will someday
never experience again
&
&
& wish we did -
i feel a heavy cry
pale
and watery
bricks
a sun is setting
dragging out and down
the entire blue sky
why does it run away from me?
what did i do?i feel a heavy cry
eking barely out
i want release
i want release
my heart is Vesuvius
i wish
to be covered me in ash//make known to the world
what i hide inside
my heart is Vesuvius
cover me in ash -
a prayer during nap time
When there are twelve of them
it is a sea.
I am lucky to be alive
with so much life around me.We are not sailors
but there is something to the starboard way
// to the wind in our sails we need
more today than yesterday.
So much of their life
is spent in a day —
such a large fraction is
the next thing I say.They wonder so much more
than all the adults I know —
their appetite for answers
exceeds their patience though.Christ let me not do what my parents did.
GOD let me not ever say “because I said so”
// againand GOD, if YOU would, see our sails are all out
please take a big breath and blow us about.Amen.
nathanael.ink 