The greatest poem ever writtenmust be a love poem. There must bea tongue in this poem, with its ownanimal heart, and two lips that suck skinlike warm dumplings.
But. The greatest poem ever written,also must be a war poem, where peopleeat grenades instead of sandwiches,where children remember their homesonly as lightning bolts.
If I build this poem on a mountain,overlooking a dragon-shaped lake,I cannot be afraid of fallingfrom the roof of the poemto my doom. Instead, I must learnthe recipe for making a neon rainbow,that floats like a fog between old trees.
There will be ghosts. After all,it is the greatest poem ever written,which means, people love people who dieand haunt their dark windows.The dead return as green light-energy.They sneak into our bodies at the feet,then ripple through our legslike an ocean wave.We have sex, and we pretendit is not the ghost in uscompassing our hips.
Because this is the greatest poemever written, it needs to be true.We are already residentsof the insane asylum, a straight jacketis the only quilt we own.What are eyeballs? What are eyeballs? Are you an eyeball?
You are late to work.You live in New York City.Your bag is too heavy,you are certain,today will be the dayyour collar bone snapslike a carrotfrom the ferocious weight.You are holding a paper cup of tea.When you try to squeeze honeyinto the rising steam, you miss –the sticky golden goooozes over the linesof your palm.You can lick it offor you can throw yourselfinto traffic.
I daydream of taking a long,hot shower, while the whole world burns.I stand alone in the bathtub.Outside, tornadoes of fire roar.Flames are arms.Come and get me. Holy hands. Take me.
Photo by Sapan Patel on Unsplash