“And to his surprise, there were butterflies coming out of his mouth.”
--- --- --- ---
Quite literally, nothing is literal. Everything is a grain of salt in itself, and therefore no matter what we do or say or read or hear or exist, we all die of sodium poisoning. Is that a possible thing to do? Can we live, breathe, exist even if we ourselves are but a single grain of salt to be taken with other infinite grains of salt? Can a grain of salt itself die in general, let alone die of sodium poisoning?
Ah, sand, then? No, that can’t be any better. What about sugar? Absolutely not. What is everything, then, if not a grain of salt to be taken with another grain of salt, and another, and another?
An extended metaphor, maybe. How many grains of salt does it even take to create an extended metaphor, though? How does one measure such a strange volume? Would the measurements even be cubic? Volume? Area? What does an extended metaphor look like? A paragraph, I suppose, so that would be area. But how big would this paragraph be? Average? How big is the average paragraph, and how would anyone ever count the endless amount of paragraphs being written everywhere and everywhen? Further research is required.
I find myself wishing much more than I ever have, or ever should, that there existed any kind of salt-to-paragraphs conversion chart.
My life is that food
which is half baked,
half burned,
bitter with too much salt
has many different spices
to make it taste ridiculous
but surprisingly still edible.
when the tide is high
fish are splashing on main street
the ground water begins to taste
like the Atlantic ocean
soon Florida Margaritas will not need
salt on the rim of their cocktail glasses
their lemons will have enough
to protects its citizens
from the dire consequences of rising sea levels
the state government acted
fast and furious
and has bann(on)ed terms like
“climate change” and “global warming”
from its official vocabulary
lick your palms before you dive
i've sweat all my salt into your hands
don't lose it
cramp scared the daylight out of me
so i'll sit in the sun a little longer
sipping my pink lemonade.
wearing my enamel.
i'll watch you swim. seize the day.
from a distance where i can still hear the little winged love birds singing in the canopies. and cicadas chirp at dusk.
there's days to come i'll remember this
and wish i had the guts to be even waist deep in the sea
just to be close to you.
when the rain paints a river on the hillside i sit upon. my teeth chatter 'til they crack, and you were here once (but now you're not).
she smells like the sun
when her skin burns
all salt-stained from the sea.
or the scent of chlorine
clings to her skin.
she's as loud as the world
if the seas were brimming
with singing plankton and fish
and all of their voices
erupt from the burst
of a bubble of spit on her lip.
in birth i wake
with an overbearing taste
of salt in my mouth.
people are the worst,
i don't want to be one.
but misandry is misdirected
it lacks perspective.
people are the persons
that make up the waves
of eyes and mouths
that i wade into in birth.
and one gentle tide will
wash upon the shore,
that carries me to sea
and i'll be willing to go.
i was assured in birth
In the BEGINNING
There was you
And with you
Came me
It was us
Us against the world
Strolling towards the future
Side by side
Lost in a warp
With the world plugged in our ears
It is you and I
Against us
Our backs turned against the future
(a future frozen even with global warming)
We look behind
Remembering not LOT’s wife
And the PILLAR of salt.
The END
©Belema .S. Ekine
Throw anything around us
either way as you please.
But not even a single grain of salt
us all stuck in a single wound.
What we want is not more than one
Our eyes don't blink just watch.
Any how any way
east, west, south, north is fine.
Goodness knows
we all got caught
just for one single reason.
Just the one, that's all.
we went to philly and it rained. i spent most of the time running through puddles and taking blurry pictures, of trees, of the sky, of beautiful big buildings that seemed so strange to my coldgreyconcrete eye. it was weird. i liked it.
i think flowers are assholes, you see we went to philly and i saw flowers, which was strange to me-cities dont have flowers, you see. we have night markets and the smell of that weird boiled egg tea and peoplepeoplepeople and definitely not flowers (except in the new year because of course there are flowers in the flower market and also sometimes up alleyways there'll be a scarybutnice old lady selling them, maybe with her grandson there too). but regardless of what cities should have and what cities should not have, there were flowers. and they were bright and many and i stared at them long and hard and accusing and inquisitive. they didnt stare back. and so, i repeat, flowers are assholes.
so yeah we went to philly but i feel kindofbad because we didnt really go to philly we more went to one-no two, three? (if the parking garage counts)-streets because we were there for this one restaurant but i saw this one place with a bunch of flags and some buildings and took a photo with a random landmark so it counts right? (i think thats all cities can be for some people, walk down nathan road visit a night market shop at pacific place maybe go up to the peak and youve seen all of hong kong right? its rather easy to quantify a city if you put it that way i suppose) but no, as a fellow city dweller i know more than most that a city exists in the cracks between pavements and small market stalls and the lightness in your chest when you become a regular at starbucks and people go out of their way to help you even if theyre busy, that a city exists when you can walk on the bustling pavements like theyre your own hardwood floors and look at an office tower and go-oh samantha works here and thats what a city really is.
and that's pretty much it. we went to philly.