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Kai 2d
“aficionado artiste”
“compassionate creative”
“enlightened erudite”
“siren singer”
these pearls that spill from your lips…
of course they do, clam that you are.
haven’t you seen Me? a poised performer, strung pearls over every joint
My neck, My wrists, My ankles, My waist—
all the places where bones settle and dust gathers
“heavy is the head that wears the crown,”
but Mine is wrapped in threaded pearl
heavy is the body in the brocade robes,
but Mine floats in tangled pearl

would I swallow pearl, I would sink and drown
but in this pearled net, I cascade in the wake, pulled along

“forgiving friend”
“irreplaceable idealist”
“reinvigorating rarity”
“enigmatic exemplar”
these pearls that fall from your fingers…
of course they do, shuck that you are.
haven’t you seen Me? I glisten, adorned and tangled in pearls.
I must be the most glimmering thing your piteous eyes can witness
with your mangled flesh and shattered shell!

my flesh? i have no flesh.
I became pearl long ago,
but the memory of flesh ensnares me.
i cultivated every single pearl with my own flesh.
i forced them into your mouths, hoping you would swallow them for me
praying you would sink for me
watching you drown for Me—
oh, won’t you drown with me?
swallow my pearls and sink to me,
and pull me back to the surface?
(caught in a net of pearl like this, how can i swim?)
(that body drowned long ago)

if you don’t drown in these lonely depths,
wind these threads around a hook
and pull this empty, pearl-embedded net through the wake.
my flesh is long sunken,
but I can still make your boat beautiful
oh, how do i try to summarize the thoughts behind this poem? it’s some mixture of golden child syndrome, a numbness to compliments, and the resignation that i may never be known by anyone— not even myself. i often fear i have lost the ability to know who i am, and this identity of mine is an empty performance for an audience of one.

it’s not difficult for me to admit that my self worth stems from my capability. this is only because i know my self-awareness ends up making me more charming. but if i say it bluntly like this, my arrogance will reveal itself, won’t it?

is it arrogance if i’m objectively correct? i ask myself this question often. i keep re-evaluating to make sure my outlook on everything is correct, and i am always brought to the same conclusion: i am undeniably an impressive and unique person, from an objective standpoint. of course, there are many impressive and unique people in this world. i have the great fortune of knowing some of them. i know i’m no rare gem, but merely a pearl like the many others.

so is this arrogance? or humbleness?
  Mar 19 Kai
Kiernan Norman
I knew you were there —
knuckles resting like they didn’t know what to do.
I heard your breath through the wood.

You almost knocked. I felt it —
the air pulling back,
the hush flexing its muscles.

I almost opened the door. I felt that too —
the lock daring me to turn it,
the weight of the air leaning hard against my chest.

But neither of us moved.

We just stood there —
two statues pretending not to be waiting —
except I heard you breathing.
And I know you heard me too.
  Mar 19 Kai
Jeremy Betts
Hey you there

It's not just me in here
Oh how I wish you could hear the coconspirator
Or see in a single tear how loud the fear of fear truly can be
And how I'm so rarely allowed to steer

I AM a dark passenger, MY dark passenger
A near prison like constricting atmosphere with no breathing apparatus gear
Life can be so impossibly cavalier
Death is always closer than it should ever appear, regardless of the mirror

In my story I have the glory of a lone fourth musketeer
With a crowded asylum between each ear
So many questions but not a single agreed upon answer will appear
And I've yet to meet this so called infallible puppeteer

Though the hierarchy is clear, it passes through an auctioneer
"Punish thee if thy finds I should ever veer from thy holy 'engineer'"
Hell, they can stay put like a headlight frozen deer
I'd rather be allowed to be the one to disappear

I did not ask to be here

©2025
Kai Mar 19
when you were born,
a shy summer snow,
they said:
“bear the burden of this world on your shoulders.”

to you,
a sauna in the snow,
they said:
“give us water. quench our thirst.”
and so you brought forth steam,
and gathered humid dews,
and sweat salt,
and wrung water into their maws.
and so they sweltered, and still—
they were thirsty.

you say:
“i bring no water. i quench no thirst. and thus i fail.”
i say:
“give me heat. give me humidity. give me heart.”
“give me whatever you want to give.”
and you do,
and from this heat i sweat,
and from this warmth i cry,
and aren’t my tears water?

to you,
a shy summer snow,
they said:
“give us water. quench our thirst.”
and so you melted,
and dissolved into the current,
lost into salted misery.

you were born not to bear burdens
but to love and be loved
to live, to laugh, to sweat, to cry,
and aren’t your tears water?
my snowstorm, my sauna
the salt i sweat for you
cry for you
is the sweetest nectar.
our modern post-capitalist society punishes people when they fail to do a level of work no one was ever born to do. (neurodivergent people tend to take the first fall here…)

i hate watching my loved ones blame themselves for failing. i hate seeing them think they’re not “good enough”. it’s the demand itself which should be blamed.
Kai Feb 20
that hurt in your gut,
the one that starts in your diaphragm and coils up your lungs,
then clenches in your throat and salts your eyes
and when you swallow it,
it wraps down and squeezes your stomach
the one that jitters your nerves,
shakes your shoulders,
freezes your tongue,
and curls your spine
the one that crawls out in whimpers,
in whispers,
in wails
in words too honest

that hurt is not your enemy.
it is your heart’s voice
it says, “this isn’t fair”
it says, “i deserve better”
this one is as much a reminder to myself as it is something i want to express to others
Kai Jan 22
Less than a drop in an ocean
than a molecule
than a single explosive atom
in an ocean
in an abyss
in a universe.

More than a landmass for a billion bacteria
a colossal energy machine
a life-giving, life-taking sun
a universe
an abyss

Just enough to be
human.
i think about how insane it is that life exists, that emotions and identity exist, et cetera. how everything that led to the people on earth today is both a total coincidence and some kind of extreme precision

and it’s like, how can you ever feel like a failure? stars collapsed so you could be here. whatever you are is already more than enough
  Jan 19 Kai
Nat Lipstadt
an existential question so deep,
it can be answered only by
enumerating a million tiny
words:

in the quiet crackling of a spine & unsticking page noise of an opening of a brand new book, a first of firsts, a thrill for free in any bookstore that is yours now, uniquely and forever

in the upward stroking of a smooth
cheek, by your smallest finger, upon
a newborn’s face, your youngest child’s
newborn, and a rare moment of unadulterated love tinged by
immortality

the smile you retrieve when scratching
that old beloved pet’s face, in the exact
spot only you two know and a long time ago
discovered


patrolling the Promenade, espying an
elderly couple so bundled against the
city’s Arctic cold freeze, that movement nearly impossible, nonetheless holding gloved hands in a manner and a moment describable only as inseparable

letting someone jump in front of you,
at the supermarket or the bank, when
they have only one item to purchase, and you, a dozen or so, but the most important item you really really urgent need you have is to prove to yourself that it is possible to buy more time
for a human

crossing with an elegant eldery woman
across the wilds of First Ave., who insists
she needs no help (ha!), but doing it anyway
by complimenting her candy striped cane,
and being rewarded with a “stop that, or
I’ll be forced to take you
home!”

searching endlessly for  red kidney beans in olive oil in a health store that has no less than 19 varieties of everything, and an immigrant teenager employee tskes you across a cityscape of aisles, turns, niches and alcoves  to the exact spot and item, and you
smile and weep because the beam of their smile at your pleasure lights up two souls
simultaneously

next, herbed flavored tofu?

making a bank teller laugh (a near impossibility) when depositing a very large
check, and when asked if there is anything
else you need, informing that you would like to withdraw half immediately but only if they have a sufficient quantity of extra large size single dollar bills!

a group of privileged upper east side college seniors eating out at a wonderful Italian neighborhood restaurant, talking loudly about their recent travels abroad, and how crazy it is that one cannot get a cappuccino in Italy(!) except at breakfast
(oh, the in-justice)

here I stop, because not a lot, of my reasons
to be brought forth are concluded, but only because  you have started
to feel an urgent need to p-
repare/start your own list, immediately if not sooner to ascertain precisely your own anwer to:
Where
are you
being?


5:48am
NYC
Shabbat, January 18, 2025
18 Tevet, 5785
most of these happenings occurred all on one day
last week;; one, 7 years ago…only ine was imagined but is planned

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4956772/exactly-how-far-is-it-to-you/


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4956772/exactly-how-far-is-it-to-you/
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