Not for children
Today, it’s not uncertainty, or gratitude, or anger, or faith, or sublimity.
Today, it is fear.
Fear licking the bones. Fear itching the teeth. Fear huddling the chest, grazing the skin. Fear the churning cyclone in your core.
Fear the taste of lemon in your gag. Fear I can’t reach what’s in front of me. Fear call your loved ones tell them you’re here for them. Fear we’ll get through this. Fear the falling dollar the closing door abandoned altar and prayer hall. Fear scrub and wipe away the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Fear drive faster work harder help me I’m going to scream hugless unreal city vacant are these veins like these sterile streets.
Scratch this nose. Unleash this cough. Snack without counting the kernels. God in Heaven Grant me the weed chocolate liquor to get me through this thing Let me be brave Give us this Day our Sanity! Black Monday, March Sixteenth, March the Cruel, March of 2020, March and Marches, carve out this decade The Apocalypse!
The world is coming down, my loves. The center cannot hold. The Titanic’s going under. The Pyramids are sinking. Mahal is wilting. The Redeemer is going to jump. Make way! Make way! Timber, Washington! Timber, Napoleon! Timber, Asoka! Timber, Hatshepsut! Timber, Genghis! Timber, Caesar! Timber, Alexander!
I will trade you beans for pot and a handful of ground. I’ll hold you in my eye. I will show you my spleen and you show me yours. I’ll make room for you under the shadow of this rock. I will walk with you in silence. I will lie with you in the dark and face the ceiling. I will dare to cast a smile.
NOTES
thousand natural shocks “Hamlet” 3.1. unreal city “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot. Give us this Day The Bible KJV Matthew 6:11. Black Monday Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. March the Cruel “April is the cruellest month…” “The Waste Land”. The center cannot hold “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. handful of ground “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” “The Waste Land”. under the shadow…“The Waste Land”.
Yousef Alqamoussi 