hot's shit

to be optimistic is to willingly suspend
your belief in what you know to be too true
that people are the same
everywhere you go
anytime you meet
play the lottery backwards
and still desire your losing numbers
to be gracious is to turn your head away from
the things people do that blister and sting
nod along to voices speaking
at a pitch you can’t hear
and they say that to be a drop of water
is to know the essence of the ocean
but they’d never in their lives
seen a sea like this
and the older i get the more it becomes clear
that to be and to know
are misaligned wheels of the same truck taking you toward
the dust from whence you came
to be virtuous is to put on your blinders
and run opposite the wind that has
blown away every speck of epidermal decency in
every person that you ever encounter
who wants to stab their fork into you
and take a bite
because even as their teeth sink into
your limbs and entrails
you feel the divinity of having an empty, open mouth
braced to shower praise onto dirt and worms
and lastly
to be a human being
is vastly different than to be alive
to take on the challenge of being velvet among ceramic shards
is to fully engage yourself with
the passion project of
making something out of nothing
reevaluating what is old and done
because nothing new is available
and maybe one day
you will stretch toward the same sky you have
woken under for the last infinity
and really feel what it means to be
“the greatest love offering
in the history of the world”