What can I say? I had ever-after ping-ponging its potential against my palms.
I dreamt of oceans & operas, fireflies & football,
and it all exploded toward infinity
before I really had a plan.
All of a sudden, volcanoes were erupting everywhere,
prokaryotes twinning like crazy.
I turned to click the moon in place,
and by the time I returned, found a man peeling skin from his brother's skull,
whole tribes paying debt with their backs' labor.
I tried to intervene, but they had weaponized the voice & genitals,
mythologized my pleas: banshee, ghost, 귀신, wendigo.
I dropped the salvation I was saving. I flew.
So yes, you were my first. Forgive me.
I wanted to birth the next universe.
I could already see my mistakes:
how carving oceans between you was sure to foster distrust;
that the wonder of the mind could never be expressed
through the lowing of tongues & lips;
how asking one man to carry my commandments
would regiment the imbalance of power.
But even I couldn't have guessed
the breadth of being butchered into virility's proving grounds:
sex, sport, wealth, the impulse to isolate the self—
how my love could be the scapegoat for it all.
I've failed a few more worlds since then—
wept as hunger wilted sinew
while the fat penned dirges for those still-walking cadavers.
But I get better each time. I've got this new place:
Flat acre of sword grass,
single well of fresh water,
dog-sized creatures with no eyes or mouths or noses,
just ears to hear the music they make
churning against each other, searching
for any warm body to share this eroding moment.
This poem was first published in Stirring.