Pond
I found my hurt at the center
of the universe which is always
in front of my face. The drug that
hugs me to sleep can keep me
from it; an inkling of the nothing
happening around, and who can say
we are not half as beautiful and numb
as we have made us. Technologies
resemble stars in the now ever-
twilight sky, but not one bright
gaseous burn. To speak for anyone
would not be right, but for me
I can say I am attached tonight
to my ways of beauty, and just
when I think to not contend with
the present I’m in, I trip within it.
Factory, business, bureaucracy,
home, all of the human above,
please turn off your lights for me.
The earth is tender and paper
thin and I have not once today
commended me for noticing how
green grass is. In this new hot Jupiter
of a summer, what a bummer
to lose even the option of stars.
I can’t begin to feel my own anger,
or believe we truly know ourselves
through and through. The static
of one brain, this might just be
the plight of my socioeconomic
status. I’m no zoo animal that’s
for sure. However, that we were
specks once we must fess up to.
There was something lost called
the starry night, they were innumerable
flecks of dead light that sparked
the meditation of men and women.
Each one had a name. Don’t count
on a next life or recovery. Make new
heavens, and ways to protect them.
Frank Alvarez is a recent Mayapple Foundation Fellow and graduate of the MFA Writing Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. Originally from Westchester, New York, he currently lives in Los Angeles.
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