I’ve only written two poems in my entire life. Well, that’s not entirely true. I used to write lyrics for a band my friends and I were forming that never got off the ground. I’ve been in a bad place as of late and jotted this down last night to kind of try to help me through what I’m going through. I don’t know if it makes sense or if it’s any good, but I thought I’d share it here. Maybe it can help someone else. Maybe I’m just screaming into the void as usual. Like I said, I’ve just been in a bad way and felt the need to write something and couldn’t come up with anything but these words. I didn’t do much thinking on it. I just wrote down what came to mind. Just my own discombobulated mind spilled out on paper and now here on the Internet.
I wake up each morning
as if returning to a mistake I didn’t make.
The sun rises out of habit,
and I rise out of spite.
Some days my mind is a broken cathedral,
echoing with sermons I never asked to hear.
Other days it’s a carnival mirror–
every reflection warped
every laugh track broken.
There is a rhythm to the collapse,
a pulse that insists I keep going
even when I want to negotiate my exit
with whatever god still bothers
to read the fine print of my thoughts.
Bipolar dawns come and go:
one morning I am incandescent,
a lighthouse for a ship that will never arrive;
the next I am the ocean floor,
quiet enough to make silence uneasy.
But existence refuses to end on cue.
It drags on with the stubbornness of a bad joke
that no one remembers telling.
And I still stay for the punchline,
not out of hope,
but because even futility has a texture
I’ve learned to hold without breaking.
If there’s any mercy in this world,
it’s that numbness, too, is a kind of shelter.
And on the days when the abyss leans in
as if to whisper a shortcut,
I answer the only way I know how:
Not today.
I’m busy watching the ruins glow.
Tag: poetry
The Last One to Leave, Please Turn Off the Stars
The end began on a Tuesday, not with a bang, but a corporate memo. Subject line:
“Due to budgetary constraints, existence will be discontinued effective immediately.”
At first, no one noticed. Birds kept chirping. Influencers kept influencing. A man in Tallahassee still refused to return his library books.
Then came the second memo.
“This is not a drill. Earth is being decommissioned. Please gather all meaningful memories into a single shoebox. Label it clearly. Return to HR.”
No one knew where HR was, but rumors spread it was located inside a vending machine behind the moon. The vending machine offered two items:
1. A bag of Dust of What Could Have Been
2. The Answer (temporarily out of stock)
A philosopher named Dr. Linda Spoon attempted to rally humanity. She declared: “Omnicide is just suicide with a better view.” She received a standing ovation, then spontaneously combusted from the irony.
The whales voted to stay neutral.
The bees unionized and demanded severance pollen.
The cockroaches opened a jazz club called “The Fallout Lounge.”
Meanwhile, governments responded the only way they knew how: with committees. The United Nations formed the Final Task Force on All That Is (and Isn’t). Their final report read:
“We deeply regret to inform you that everything was a clerical error.”
Earth filed an appeal. It was denied on the grounds of insufficient vibes.
In a bunker beneath Antarctica, a man named Derek attempted to reboot existence using an old Nintendo console and a paperclip. He succeeded, but only in resurrecting Disco.
The skies filled with mirrored balls and Donna Summer.
The oceans turned into soda.
The dolphins began speaking in limericks.
In space, the Galactic Oversight Council convened.
“Who authorized this?”
“I thought you did.”
“No, I outsourced it to a freelance algorithm.”
“Oh god.”
“No, just Algorithm-7. God was laid off last quarter.”
They voted to cancel the universe’s trial period. Turns out, no one had upgraded to Premium.
As atoms began untangling like poorly made spaghetti, one child—unbothered—drew a smiley face in the dirt. The dirt began humming. The humming confused the laws of physics.
The universe paused.
Time asked Space, “Are we… still doing this?”
Space shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I was just here for the free gravity.”
And just before the final pixel flickered out, someone whispered:
“Maybe this was a screensaver.”
Then everything crashed to desktop.
Sisyphus Shrugged 