Thursday, November 11, 2021

BEYOND YOU

You say the rules are simple,
yet the game is
complex—

it's not 
that we don't want to die, 
but that we actually can't. 

These names attached 
feel so clever, so singular; 
each word 

conveys no sense 
of reconstituting 
past.

If now is always now, 
you contend, then the leaving
will not be registered.

Beyond you, ceaselessly,
somewhere, the ocean 
is crashing

but there's no pain
to the impact, 
no ennui in the sighs, 

no bereavement
in the heaving.
So why are you running so fast 

to kill 
hunger pangs 
for an afterlife?

Why are you not trying 
instead 
to copy that?