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In such an ignorant culture of blunt stupefying pleasure
people sometimes forget what exactly they’re looking for.
Maybe it’s covered in chocolate, maybe it’s a root beer float,
but whatever it is, they need it. They need it now,
so they lose sleep over it, tossing their dreams away,
finding extra time to get the things done
that will lead them to the “pleasant” things they pursue.
But we never find that big Whatever in our lives
because we take on further responsibilities to get it faster
because waiting is the real torment that holds us captive
from attaining anything as esoteric as a goal in life
closing, faster and faster, in a half-dimension of time
whose unrelenting constancy never holds back
with strong, weak, electromagnetic, gravity
all bound together with nine others
trapping us in a blinding flash of pain and lunacy
that some people call a hard day’s work.
So much stress is self-induced.
Less sleep means more stress.
Less exercise means more stress.
Fewer social interactions mean something else.
Maybe more stress.
Maybe more free time to have fun writing poems
about what goes on in the lives of people I know.
Time to reflect, to imagine the possibilities.
What if I weren’t me?
What if I was them instead?
Write a poem sometime.
It’s intellectually/literarily romantic.
See me sometime. I stay in school.
So now I go back to my homework.
© Gabriel Koulikov
people sometimes forget what exactly they’re looking for.
Maybe it’s covered in chocolate, maybe it’s a root beer float,
but whatever it is, they need it. They need it now,
so they lose sleep over it, tossing their dreams away,
finding extra time to get the things done
that will lead them to the “pleasant” things they pursue.
But we never find that big Whatever in our lives
because we take on further responsibilities to get it faster
because waiting is the real torment that holds us captive
from attaining anything as esoteric as a goal in life
closing, faster and faster, in a half-dimension of time
whose unrelenting constancy never holds back
with strong, weak, electromagnetic, gravity
all bound together with nine others
trapping us in a blinding flash of pain and lunacy
that some people call a hard day’s work.
So much stress is self-induced.
Less sleep means more stress.
Less exercise means more stress.
Fewer social interactions mean something else.
Maybe more stress.
Maybe more free time to have fun writing poems
about what goes on in the lives of people I know.
Time to reflect, to imagine the possibilities.
What if I weren’t me?
What if I was them instead?
Write a poem sometime.
It’s intellectually/literarily romantic.
See me sometime. I stay in school.
So now I go back to my homework.
© Gabriel Koulikov