self moderation during the end of the world | spoken word poetry

Описание: dedicated to my sister, cordie
you make me feel alive

nine pm, somewhere in memphis, its clear with a slight breeze, and you’re leading us through a back road in which we might make a wrong turn. i am alive, the street lamps are humming faintly against the stars, and i have never felt more free.

obligatory: don’t smoke


transcript:

my sister reigns on
the smallest slice of earth you could imagine
the queen of nothing, the queen of everything
the streets, her halls
the train car, her throne
i see her everywhere i go
for this i am glad

i see her in the graffiti on the walls, promising hope
i see her in the kindness of strangers on the street
i see her in moments where the universe aligns perfectly,
i love to see bits of her in everyone i meet

my sister is the most brilliant person i know
and i will tell her this, as her cigarette hangs off of her lips
i will tell her i love her, and i will watch as she continues to smoke the cigarette
i will say nothing as she wordlessly passes me it
and i take a drag.
if this drag is twenty minutes off my life
it is twenty more minutes more that she has

this is not my end goal
i will not ask her to quit smoking
all the studies say that cigarettes kill you over time
we know this, it’s true,


but i don’t think we know how to live longer
each day is another day we weren’t sure we’d get
neither of us are particularly keen on death
last i checked
but i cannot imagine waking up to a world without her in it
so we live, in this maddening scramble, one foot in and one foot out
of the frying pan of life

she’s always been good at moderation, and i trust her to be safe
so i will never fault her for picking up a cigarette to begin with
not when we both understand why
but i will sit with her and help her smoke it
knowing that even as the world ends,
it’ll be alright if we’re sitting together, hand in hand