An inconsequential nightly ritual.
I walk stiffly, nearly robotically into
my room and remove my boots.
I have a drink, maybe not.
And then I do drink.
An then I do drink again.
And then another one.
I pick away obsessed on a
guitar that’s also drunk and out of tune.
I put on music and braid my hair,
then dance a twirl untethered and erratic.

I hate a lecture more than anything.
When you want a friend, but they
are a lecture instead.
No, I don’t care that the world
is deathly ill right now.
I don’t care about racism.
I don’t care about the
homeless and poverty.
Sometimes, I just want to be a person
with interests insignificant against
the daunting scope of humanity’s
failures and futilities.

I want to talk about music,
or sit in silence and just listen to it.
I don’t want a story more poignant
than it needs to be.
I don’t want an intense
philosophical discussion about
division and the exploitation of the soul.

I want gentle, easy repose.
A moment amongst the things we
have to choose to ignore.
They are so overbearing at
every point in time that they
have become our middle school
chemical drill.
For a moment, let us not
kill the struggling spirit.
Kill laughter.
Kill fantasy.
Kill dreams.
Kill hope, in all
its expectation.

I want to talk about love and
heart-wrenching personal sorrows.
I want to write haikus with a body,
alternate the lines we write.
I want to sing over two chords
that I wrote three other songs over.

I want to kill skepticism.
I want truth and authenticity.
I don’t want to keep boots
on the ground.

I want to take my shoes off methodically
and walk on waters romanced with
oil slicks and turtles tangled in or
choking on plastic while bathed in
the twilight of a pseudo-nuclear sunset.

This is my most humble ask.