What life is this

I didn’t know it would feel so much like living on a moon colony
that I’d vacuum up so many dead ladybugs
and get really into classical music
that I’d strut around the graveyard
in what people would call pajamas

who knew show and tell would go on forever
that I’d see videos of all my friends but never see them

paintings rot in basements
wild monkeys take over an old movie theater

I eat an ice cream sandwich on my bed
happiness is elusive but it does something before it dissolves

I think about animals who’ve never seen a person and never will
potential life in Venus’s clouds
a seahorse unfurling its tail
propelling itself along

is there any point in imagining a horse ranch right now
in the midst of total catastrophe
in this long reckoning tunnel

I don’t love people in general
but I like some of their singing
when I look at them as a whole
it’s like looking at a Magic Eye
gaudy and impossible to decode

 

 

You really thought birds were going to sew you a dress

that you’d walk along a stream with your fox
and fireflies would spell out words
you’d have a secret room in your house 
filled with silk and light and
your TV would show you other planets
with your last wish you’d ask for more wishes
you’d be 1/8 detective
and discover a new world with your frog
you’d see people too
at dances and art museums
but animals would tell you things they had told no other person
you wouldn’t even need to speak
everyone would just love you

 

 

Lives

in college we burned in the dark
thinking our lives would be romantic 

even being a farmer would be romantic
especially being a farmer
it would be so satisfying and spiritual 
or we might somehow end up in an office 
with floor to ceiling windows
and a desk where nothing happens

a handful of years abroad
it felt like everyone would get those

there would be a crime
or a time of great misunderstanding
some risky or unusual habit 
we’d never expect ourselves to do 
but it wouldn’t last too long
we’d come out of it wiser
or just drape a curtain over and forget it

we’d date someone older
and then someone much younger
have a gay experience in the summer 
or somewhere with snow

if we didn’t have a family
we’d crash someone else’s
or find one at the casino
or do the hut thing, far away
bathing in absurd truths

we’d start a charity and fix the broken world
or just photograph its most depressing spots

we’d achieve success in a slow burn 
or a sudden rash
an underground following of British school boys
but even no success would be cool

the sex would be good always
we knew this as we danced
hotel sex and kitchen sex
igloo sex
castle sex
sex on drugs that make you feel like clouds
plain sex
classic sex
a year of no sex
but lots of nature and brooding

we didn’t think too much about the deaths
those would come much later
they seemed far away as stars
wrapped in shrouds and robes
and layers of foil
the deaths would be something
but even they didn’t seem like the end
if we hit a death, we’d just live non-linearly
we’d find our friends in the next life
we’d reincarnate as a hawk
or if we didn’t like that
an eel

 

 

 

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ANTIA HUNT