Everyone knows
what they say
about love
yet nobody
knows
who they even
are
and we all fail
to acknowledge
that we are taking
advice from conceptualized
wise-men
because we like
what they have to say
more than our own
ideas

I'm delirious from
the pressure in my head
and I can't help but wonder
what the first sick caveman thought
about his illness
and if he was concerned with
the frailty of life
or did none of that matter
until we didn't have to be
worried about being killed
by large beasts
to whom
we were the
disease

"God's really a nice guy
once you get to know
Him,"
they said
after the flood

I used to have this
terrible habit
of falling in love
with strangers
based on fictional
narratives I could
compose in an instant
at the provocation
of a fluttered eyelash
or eye contact held
for way too long
like the whole
Ballad of Airplane Girl
(a story for another time)
and the fact that I
would have my heart
broken
every single day
by strangers whose
voices I'd never know
couldn't seem to deter
me from looking out
at the world hoping for love
without ever looking in
the mirror
to finally love myself
and my own
narrative in all its fractured
glory

Is it really
any wonder that
our ancestors
looked at the
celestial sphere
they saw the seemingly
random array of stars
and instead of feeling
meaningless created
a narrative of
constellations
flinging
Orion
Taurus
and Ursa
at the temple walls
that make up our
night sky,
ever moving but
staying the same

Sometimes late
at night when I'm
mostly sure no one
is watching,
I like to close my eyes
and breathe deeply
through my nose in hopes
that maybe I could catch
the comforting smell
of death in the air
because decay is the only
thing that reminds me
of you and
your crumbled leaf
psyche,
a reminder that
we'll all be dust some day

I sometimes catch
my eyes and mind
latching onto the
Autumn leaves
all bathed in the
inherent frailty of
change between
life and death
and I remember how
beautifully you crumbled
like a forgotten statue
of a forgotten temple
with only rubble
and dead leaves
crunching underfoot
as reminders of what was.