Manifesto of love and obsessive compulsive introspection

Hair burned into beautiful submission Face acrylically defined and chemically composed Adornments meticulously chosen Scent tested and approved Smile practiced and performed I am a porcelain doll Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment Porcelain doll dainty wrists Washing dishes, feeding cats Folding linens, singing hymnals Praying for peace and safety Porcelain doll knitting sweaters And folding paper cranes Reading poems, setting tables Wearing cardigans and pearls Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes Lighting scented candles Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth  But lipstick can be dark Eyes lined black as city alley ways There is anger at injustice The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house It’s messy It’s hard It’s iron and concrete and coal And I am too Biking through the brick metropolis Sunglasses and headphones And anarchist literature Evenings spent sprinting through the smog Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city So hard to impress I’m on the metro Eyebrows structured and defined And adorned with a calculated air of apathy See me social justice march Down highways with fervently entitled youths See me armed against misogyny Until my peers learn to better conceal it See me smoking cigarillos Drinking black coffee Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me And chanting manifestoes. But my manifesto can be love And love can conquer anger and fear And hatred Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity And it can abolish resentment Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth. I burn incense And wear long skirts Naked face and braless lazy days Reading pacifism in the park I walk far to find pure air to breathe I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy Under a wise and ancient tree I trace myself backwards and forwards I meditate on the paths I have traveled I cry for the things I have seen And for the things I have done I contemplate transcendence I drink wine and listen to folk music On the terrace of my home I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room I think only of death And resurrection Of betrayal and redemption Of opposites and compliments And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize I think about minimalism and materialism Sentimentalism And swords and pens And how this race I run was rigged from the start I think about blackberries And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation I think about God, And TS Eliot And If I dare disturb the universe I think about porcelain dolls and bitchy activists and dirty hippies I think about war and peace and politics About corruption and poverty and imperialism About western ideals and conspiracy theories And communism I think about being radical, And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear The absolution of fear And how I am fairly certain it is the answer I think about the inevitability of art and war how they create each other how they destroy each other inspire each other and annihilate each other and how there is nothing that is innocent. I think about pain and privilege And stacked decks of cards I think about dreams and nightmares And prophesy. I think about the darkness within me Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal The darkness that I know could make me very great But alone in the ashes of the world I think of the curse of wealth and power And I try to evaluate my motives And the driving force of my ambition But I don’t know. I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand And toil and fate and destiny The shape of these things, their origins and culminations And what this black box of secrets contains. I think about so many things, Until everything I was on the outside is gone. My body is gone My painted face and sculpted hair My varnished nails and pierced ears All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone My blood evaporated My brain an invisible energy in the wind. My home and street And city Are gone. And even in such complete concentration When it is only my essence and nothing else And I transcend throughout my past and future When I am spread thin And stretched into the corners When I fill the cracks and crevices And melt into the pores of everything And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality Even then, Scio Nihil I know nothing. .

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Written by

ariel-evangeline-baptista

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