YOU THINK LIFE IS

YOU THINK LIFE IS

 

You think life is something

that is happening to you

from the outside

like upcoming events

posted like leaves on the wind

because you think your skin

is where you end

and the world begins

but to the wind

you’re just another sail

that thinks it knows where it’s going.

What’s the point of trying to mend

all those constellations

you’ve torn on the thorns of the moon

with a mouthful of pins

you keep sticking into yourself

to make someone else hurt

like a Barbie doll playing with voodoo?

What kind of magic

keeps getting caught up

in the weird starmaps and crazy webs

of the spells you try to cast over me

like toxic revelations of what it’s like

to see the world through the eyes

of a spider on acid

who thinks she’s the queen of the honey bees?

But it’s not the flowers

that fuel your delusion

of the occult powers

of a born-again schizophrenic

that keeps trying to carry me

like Rasputin’s cat in a burlap bag

down to the same river

you rescued Moses from.

You want to be the only wand left

in a snakepit of lesser magicians

when the pharoah asks for proof

you’re on a divine mission

to lead your people out of Egypt

by cleaving a sea of red shadows on the moon

to run like holy blood from a demonic wound.

That novella of facts without a theme

you’ve been working on for years

is just another interpretation

of an anonymous dream

that ended up on your desk

like dirty pictures of someone

blowing the whistle on their own life.

Your acutely annotated confessions

are always sins of omission,

waivers of space,

fevers of grace,

breaking news

that your life,

that franchise

of discounted miracles,

is finally in remission.

And I’m beginning to think,

and maybe I should be flattered, 

that I was the only sin you could find

that was worthy for a while

of the severities of your redemption.

Where else would you look for a cure

if not in the heart of the disease,

but why put your own eyes out

to heal the mirror?

Why heave yourself ashore

like a tidal wave

over some unsuspecting island

just to wash your hands of me

when the sea closed

like an eyelid over Atlantis months ago

to dream the afterlife of a different death

that didn’t foul my last breath

with the sterile purity

of listening to you

make your rounds

like the moon in reverse

in the halls of the terminal nightward

where Lucifer never rings for the nurse?

 

PATRICK WHITE