Note To Self:*
If the world were to end tomorrow, today would just be today. Lunch would just be lunch, depending which day, the sun would rise and the sun would set and I would probably be leaving a lot of things unsaid, because how am I supposed to know the world is going to end tomorrow?
If the world were to end tomorrow, I would leave the idea of tomorrow to gather dust ‘till the sun’s fingers came to pluck it from my grasp, and I would not mind letting it go.
For if the world were to end tomorrow, tomorrow would be the most beautiful thing to ever happen to this world since God first sang, “Let there be light.”
And there was light. And tomorrow, again.
Things To Do:
1. Cook some hot, sticky rice for breakfast. These little legs of mine will be needing all the energy they can get for some spontaneous visits and last attempts at trying to save the child who dug his own grave and is now standing at its mouth asking himself if this is what heaven looks like.
2. Make my way to the resting place of the one I loved the most.
Smile. I don’t know if it would be wide or not.
Leave a note in green ink —
“See you soon.”
Hug the stone angel that used to give you comfort when you had just lost your mother.
Hum a hymn on my way out.
Leave the gate unlocked.
Let the street children pour in.
3. Run back to the walls placed in my path,
dance around seven times while singing psalms
until they fell
if
they fell
or maybe I would stumble around seven times
while crying and screaming mercy
until they fell
if
they fell.
4. Love harder. Carry around words of fire, vomiting flames of spirit and life to keep the virgins’ lamps burning, remind them that their groom is returning, He just needs to make sure that everything will be pure in time for their vows, and they need to remember that death is not the final destination, but only the beginning of a new journey in which everywhere you go, your car window view is a valley of dry bones coming back to life, and if still they refuse to listen, I will only love them harder.
5. Pretend as if I’m dying then whisper stories of hope into the ear of the kind stranger that kneels down to help me. For some people only listen when shouts have become echoes.
6. Ask around for directions and instructions on how to finish off this list I am making. Take the hands of whoever has the right answers or of whoever has at least one of the same on their sheet of paper, run to any place we can call shelter and sing praises. Quietly. Loudly. Sing with nasal tones and chest tones and head tones, sing until our lungs collapse beneath us, sing like our shakey notes can pierce the darkness, sing like the moon is still shining and the sun isn’t darkened and all the stars haven’t yet fallen, sing until we see glory bleeding from the sky and
7. Weep with gladness. For here comes God singing for the second time,
“Let there be light.”
And there was light. And today, again.
Another spoken word poem written for Sali Productions' event, What If: The World Ends Tomorrow.