I hold in my hands
The beginning of a poem.
The beginning,
Or perhaps the very end of a loose string.
Eyeing me.
Asking me,
You,
Who sit behind the desk,
You.
Do you forever wish to maintain this?
Do you never wish
To sit below?
Above?
In front of?
Inside?
That’s stupid,
I say,
You can’t sit inside a desk.
It’d have to be industrial-
Sized.
And they don’t make those,
They don’t.
The string hasn’t moved.
It simply says-
‘I’m not joking.’
---
‘Do you wish to meet your heroes,
beggars, fools, enemies, lovers, and
every walk of human who walk
forever in the in-between?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you wish to know
life
and death
instantaneously,
contemporaneously,
with solemnity,
with contempt,
and know
every moment and feeling
inbetween?’
‘Yes.’
‘You shall know little else.’
‘Do you
wish to wish
wish to want
want to wish
and so on
and so forth?’
The string asks me tirelessly.
‘Simply put,
I am always wanting.
I am always at fault.
I am never wrong
But I am never right
Either.’
‘You know this
and little else.
Live both in
This world
And outside it.
View this place as it were never meant to be.
Like you,
It waiting to see
And be seen.
Like me,
It is a string.
It is nothing,
And yet to pull
Means everything
You have been summoned to task.
I have been left here to
Ask you:
Will you do it?’
The string has not moved
But my hands are shaking.
‘No,’
I say,
‘Yes.’