Which Is To Say | Poetry

There is no wish I wish to say.

The distance between me and

the average life expectancy

of a man is the same distance

to a sudden and scarily recent yesterday,

one that flavors my dreams

as though I just woke to that cold sunrise.

My namesake died at the same age I am today.

He perished from “the stone.”

He worked until his last breath;

he’s remembered by almost no one

save academics and me.

I’m to measure everything against “greatness”—

which is to say, against the herd’s love or hate

for similar things.

If my hard work doesn’t register,

then it was for naught,

and I am a loser,

a waste,

a worthless freeloading dipshit.

It’s true:

I haven’t been able to stand alone.

But then, no one has.

“Self-made” is a myth for children.

Toxic individuality is destroying

everything as I write this;

children raised by villages

do in fact turn out to be much better.

As do the villages.

It isn’t possible to be a true creator

in this day and age without suffering

melancholy and depression.

We have been reduced to

“content providers,”

and are expected to give all we have made

away for free.

Else we’re just “selfish.”

And so here we are

at the end of the world.

The Quiet is returning—

very, very loudly.

Most of you will go to your graves

having given nothing to this world

and taking everything you could get your

filthy mitts on.

This you call “capitalism,”

and claim there is no alternative to it.

Oblivion is waiting for you.

It’ll be the pure of us “content providers”

that’ll get to move on.

Not you.

Never you.

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From the upcoming

Conversations With God: Volume Two

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Featured: Disbelief, by yours truly