WHEN BUILDING WORLDS, THE “HOW” IS NEVER AS IMPORTANT AS THE “WHY”
Is written on the gates of the afterlife;
There was no one with whom to share
the thought, one the Maker realized half-way
through, slapping his forehead, finally
able to key in on why he thought dinosaur’s
were so boring.
So it’s inscribed on the gate, lest
any other celestial being might happen along,
read it and utter too true, too true
or maybe that was too much to wish for,
but Maker knew not what it knew not,
and wore that like a down comforter.
Don’t worry,
you can copy my notes later
says one passed soul to an-other, Others
pen suddenly out of ink. The pop-quiz
hadn’t been announced yet, but everyone
knows, and there are many gates to go.
The Other:
once chastised a classmate for needing a pen,
took solace in his panic,
failed to realize we’re reflected light until
right now-
-on the other side of the universe,
where everything we’ve done is imprinted,
upside down,
like an iris
One summer, Other went on family vacation
To a hotel with the longest chandeliers. Giant
light spears, aimed at whoever stood beneath them,
hung with metal wires,
and he never thought about them again.
And thus they waited, these chandeliers,
waiting for the most ironic man (a chandelier salesman)
to step into the most ironic place (beneath them)
and say the most ironic thing (I’ve seen the light!)
so they could snap and impale him,
abiding his most ironic death.
And upstairs, or downstairs, or
just stairs, It thinks;
Now that would never happen
to a brachiosaurus.
Though something feels off,
and construction on a new gate
has begun.
A Modern Curse
The tiny archeologist
in his wide sun-hat and lace-up boots
sprints down the trail paved with hair
from your belly button to your crotch,
where they’ve set up camp.
He’s made a discovery:
A large cavity, where your heart used to be.
The next morning, hungover and giddy,
they repel from your rib cage
with nothing more than an arrow
of dusty sunshine and the white
lights fixed to their foreheads.
When they land on the inverse of your back they
are faced with a handwritten scroll, from me,
one you internalized long ago. Wide eyed,
the tiny workers unravel the note
and pin the top two corners to
your mammoth collar bone, and the bottom
two to your hardened lungs.
The head archeologist traces the paper with his
finger, and reads aloud:
A Modern Curse To You and Yours;
May you always wake up to construction.
May you always step in the deepest puddle
when you least expect it, and are wearing chino’s.
May your autocorrect gain sentience
and change your sheepish lies, your merciful niceties,
into your genuine thoughts, the ones you don’t share.
May you drown in your bullshit
you drink like water but vomit like vodka.
May you rot for so long in your sad songs with dance
beats that you could be beheaded with a butterknife.
May you realize who you are and what you’ve done
and never did in your last waking moment,
only as your eyes close, alone on your death bed.
The head archeologist turns to the rookie,
the one who discovered the cavity. The rookie asks,
What does it mean? As a large grin
spreads across the small boss’s face:
It means we’re gonna be famous.