Knowing

Collaborative Poem, By Paul Corman-Roberts and Taylor Collier

Knowing

your status

breaks my heart

makes me feel inadequate

I love you dog.

if that helps.

& I’m still here.

making up for lost years.

I think my thread has run out

all dad’s do that

“You know son, you oughta….”

“I promise this is the last time I’ll tell you this…”

They can’t help it.

dad tells me all the time

He cares.

doesn’t mean to make you feel inadequate

so he didn’t know what to tell me

They think they’re helping.

Their moms and dads did it to them.

Most wives don’t wanna do the holding

I close my eyes,

still see snow

damn near died last night

driving

ran off the road

got back on

couldn’t see shit

60 college football teams

get a shot at 30 meaningless trophies.

people making money

don’t want things to change

$ makes the rules.

I don’t wanna get cynical

But trying not to be is a waste of time.

keep your eyes open

for the pockets of humanity

making themselves visible once in a while.

It’s better that way.

The serpent was fucking right.

Eat the goddamn apple.

The apple is about more than sex.

The apple really is “KNOWLEDGE”

Sex IS knowledge.

knowledge is also cynicism.

knowing we are microbes in a giant black vacuum.

knowing literature.

Sex is knowing we are the serpent.

And it’s okay.

We know it.

We fucking KNOW we were stars once man,

That is our doom.

Is that we know.

That’s why bitch ass Jehovah lied.

A parent trying to give us “advice.”

which in a strange way

is us trying to give ourselves advice

Deluding ourselves.

Hypnotizing ourselves into believing.

But the mere fact

that we are able to do that

might make it true.

alright

I gotta get a shower

before I pass out

so I can wake up clean

peace.