The Poetry Marathon

My soul is a sparked match

Capable of burning down every abandoned gas station in your stereotypical hometown

that inspired every 80s movie about a guy named Brett from Chicago

rebelling against the system.

The last bit of the pungent, addicting smell of gas left in one of the barrels

Is enough to light the world on fire in the darkness of dawn, a warm glow recreating a painting

of orange and yellow swirls with the burnt taste of revenge as everything goes

Boom.

But my burnt match of a soul

Has difficulty sparking anything in life

When floods of thinking sizzle out the last of the smoke

And the world is washed over in gray.

The sky is a clear blue, early morning birds chirping over an empty lot

Their wings flapping away the fires where its passionate life stood minutes before.

The motionless air brings about the sadness of reality that there is nothing left

Of the past or present or the time anything ever mattered in the first place.

The fertile land will always be covered in nothingness, dried up flowers packing their bags

And flying off into the sunset, a shooting star that will never rise again.

The burning fire is cold and heartless

In her darkened hands covered in potassium chlorate, sulfur, fillers and glass powder,

The same material that gave life to the glowing match;

“Tutto è bene ciò che finisce bene”.

But now, the station will forever be on fire.

Everything is so loud, deafening

Making it impossible to hear in a sea of a raging existence.

Everything is so heavy, the weight of the world

Overpowering an Atlas of a child whose

Own self-worth stems from proving she is capable

Of reaching for her dreams in pure perfection.

Everything is so dark, frightening and impossible,

But the life of a shell goes on

As hope dies last in the blinding light.

It is impossible to imagine a color you have not seen

As everything is a recreation of everything else in the world.

Every book is a remix of a dictionary

The same 26 letters colliding on a page and

Clinging to the universal desire to just be happy.

Every song plays the same twelve notes,

chords composing fantasies about eternal love

and the reality of separation.

Every thought has been sung by others in some capacity,

Limiting our ability to write our reality

without accidentally becoming someone else.