I wish sometimes for new mythology,
for something new under the sun.
I wish for humanity’s spark of genius,
of madness,
of brilliance,
to not be snuffed, smothered, smote
so, so, so very often.
I wish for a time where I could still be like a child,
lean and wiry with clear blue eyes and a summer tan,
when I hadn’t started to fear myself.
And oh how I love the words lean and wiry,
and oh how I hate them.
They are what I was,
a reminder of a distant sunny, buzzy world
where the grass and tree leaves were brilliant green,
ripped up grass, clover, and weeds could feed fairies,
lions, tigers, and dinosaurs roamed the court, sidewalk, monkey grass, and puddles,
and the most dangerous things about life were pampas grass and biking accidents.
I was lean and wiry then,
and I remember it with reverence.
I continue to write the lives of people lean and wiry,
never weak and nearly plump.
I continue to wonder why me at death’s door
was better looking than me now,
and how that relates to me wanting to creep up to death’s door,
ring the doorbell,
run off,
and hope some reaper doesn’t get me with a scythe,
a scythe far sharper than pampas grass.
I wish for new mythology,
new tradition,
new rules and rites,
because the old doesn’t know me,
forgets me.
I want something to grasp onto,
something to white-knuckle,
a bullet to bite.
I want something more reverent than lean and wiry,
more reverent than healthy and well,
sane and not crazy,
memories and coping mechanisms.
I don’t want the modern,
whitewashed and watered down and weak,
no hope included.
I want black magic to sour my tongue and make my hair smell like burnt frogs,
I want dragons to breathe fire and destroy towns,
I want wendigos to cause death,
I want fairies to tangle hair and paralyze animals and steal children,
I want werewolves and vampires to be serial killers and genocidal.
I can’t help but wish for this to coincide with modern times,
because if there were really monsters,
I wouldn’t have to face myself in a mirror like I do now,
I wouldn’t have to watch people as I do,
because people would always be heroes
in comparison to monsters.
In the end, I’m glad for make-believe,
for I doubt a realm of new mythology and monsters will come to pass,
not now when magic is called science,
and any connection to the dead and death is terrifying and absurd,
and faith is going to box stores to listen to pedophiles drone about right and wrong.
In the least, in the realm of childhood,
and in the realm of art,
make-believe is allowed,
and perhaps somewhat believed,
and genius, madness, and brilliance can occasionally escape
even when the spark is near snuffed,
for if it wasn’t, I doubt there would be any good in the world at all.
And isn’t that terrifying,
that immaturity and madness
are the only things
that keep us from being monsters,
rather creating them in story.
And yet humankind systematically smites
genius, madness, and brilliance
because it scares us,
so we spawn monsters, devils and angels, and wonder why.
I like your poem because you wrote about how you felt about the monsters and the world. I must say though you shouldn't write in a poem what you would say in your own mind. You need to leave the reader guessing trying to figure out what each word means. You put alot of words on this page, a little too many to describe the feelings. It must be short but powerful like you are punching the reader in the face. It got a little confusing at times also. I found the line "And oh how I love the words lean and wiry, and oh how I hate them." was a little unnecessary. It took away from the story a bit. You need to leave the reader in sorrow. However I am amazed by your vocabulary at such a young age. You really deliver and tell your stories. Just don't write to many words.
I like this poem, mainly because of the way it is written, which is wondering. Wishing you were a person who put effort and had a spark of imagination, and bravery, and everything in between. I think you should make it more of a poem, because the stanzas have different number of lines, and that is, most of the time, what makes a poem a poem.