For him Februaries
came in two flavors:
and the savory one
he’d only tasted once.
Food, like most Februaries,
like this one,
tasted like ash by that point.
A heart is a muscle that pumps blood,
he mused,
and nothing more.
What we so foolishly
call a heart–the limbic system–
is just a series of biochemical reactions
in a complex but wholly random brain–
not a thing more. A fluke of nature.
Pointless. Worm-food.
There’s nothing significant, we’re just
hairless apes, and nothing more, he mused.
The pain is nonexistent, in that we
are nonexistent. We don’t exist,
because we’re just a collection
of chemical reactions which randomly
coalesced into a bipedal creature
with an unusual penchant for building
things and hurting other things.
We’re all just things, though.
Chemical reactions,
and nothing more.
That’d what they’d have him believe, at least.
That’s the conclusion of what so many believe.
He knew that his pain was,
and the dull ache still is
completely insignificant, meaningless,
pointless, useless,
without merit or hope.
Just like everything else
that proceeded
from his heart–no–
limbic system.
He didn’t want it to hurt.
He didn’t know why it yet did.
After all, it was just
chemical reactions.
Why did they drive him so?
He had no answer, only more questions,
but he did learn what was meant
by one last thing
on his last swing:
“cursed is he
who hangs on a tree.”
This particular poem is from Bilge Pump of a Turgid Mind
