They taught you to eat corn,
They fed you hormones
And you grew faster
Than you were ever meant to.
Your bones, your muscles, your sinews
Strained under your strange girth,
You collapsed to the ground
Amidst a pile of your own filth.

The others wailed around you,
Mile after mile of confused beasts,
Suffering,
Completely disoriented,
Completely terrified.

You all will feed the world,
The billions waiting
For your mashed and grinded flesh.

And what is your reward?
When finally your bones
Snapped underneath your immense bulk,
The men came
Prodding you with a forklift,
They laughed as you rolled
In the utmost agony,
Bleating for mercy of compassion.

It was not their fault,
They were only doing
What the system demanded
Of them.

They carried you off
And spilled your life blood
Openly onto a dark factory floor,
Hoisted you up,
Stripped you naked
Of your skin,
Tearing at your carcass
And sent you off
To the supermarkets
Where you were welcomed
As a shrink-wrapped addition
To the shelves.

There is homework strewn about,
Stray pencils and rampant equations,
And he is next to me with a guitar,
Hair wild,
Fluid mechanics tossed aside for
Metal strings and quivering notes.
Neither makes much sense to me.
I played violin for seven years,
But I never learned to command
Music;
Keys and sharps and flats
Just told me where to put my fingers,
But to him
They tell stories.
They leap and prance and laugh from his hands—
Eyes closed,
He holds them.
This is home for him,
Away from stubborn assignments
And looming futures,
And just when I suspect that he is someplace I can’t follow,
He turns and smiles.

Sometimes I play the strangest games with my head
And get sick with memories
And wish for a vacuum-existence in only present tense,
Because my present tense is so much prettier
Than clingy yesterdays and chancy tomorrows.
My present tense is full of music,
Soaring, brilliant, beautiful music,
And the musician who strums away my relentless anxiety.
It makes no sense to me,
But that doesn’t matter
Because for now,
I’m in a place where moments pass in a time signature,
Strung together by his careful hands
And brought to life by his enamored gaze.

It is in this way that I have come to believe
That everything will be ok after all.

Straight back chairs and tiny round tables,
Nearby Homer and Aesop's fables,
Stoic posture and wire-rimmed glasses,
All gather together after classes.

Two halves of me are warring.
One with logic and good intent.
The other with feeling and a heart.

One bends all reality
in an attempt to prevent
heartache and hurt.

The other speaks from
the tip of the tongue
nothing censured
and without care for possible pain.

One wages battle
against all that I know of you.
The other will never give up
or back down
or cease to care
for you.

One waves a ****** banner
claiming death unto the enemy.
"**** thine own heart"
They shout.

The other waves a banner of peace
Doves upon a white sheet.
"Love thyself and he"
They call out.

The ****** battle rages on
Each side claiming to be right.
Slowly one half begins to wane.
Its prowess cannot match
The other's beating heart.

One strikes the fatal blow
One side dies a mangled mess.
If the heart beats the logic,
logic might be spared.
But if logic doth prevail,
the heart shall be no more.

O deeper sea
That waves restless between us
Engorging and disgorging
The changeling creations
Steep rills and ridges
Making not a dent above
So stays my heart hidden
Hidden in its element
So stays our viscous love