Unbelief

More late-night half-crazed ramblings from Johnson State.

Nothing is more real that this.
There's the superficial--the moment. Nothing else.
The girl in the pink shorts
tugs our key from around my neck
and braces one rubber-flip-flop'd foot
on the wall by my head as she yanks the swollen door.
The surface. And beneath that
a hundred thousand connections & random words
firing in brief bursts of electricity and chemical messengers
coursing through the fragile tissue of the consciousness.
And below that? More. Molecules. Atoms.
Numbers too big to comprehend of particles too small to imagine
stacked to form the world so familiar,
the one of straight lines and blocked shapes
past which we stumble, looking about,
searching for the underlying path THAT ISN'T THERE.

We're trying to find out where we're going or what we're supposed to do
and it's nothing, really, only what we think is there
beneath the rough-built rule-walls we impose upon ourselves
and claw against, staring at the aging concrete,
convinced there must be something on the other side.
Maybe there isn't--what we can't see
only exists as we imagine it.

So we stick to our little things in our low world
and we can't reach beyond the tops of the manicured grass--
so we describe the ground beneath. And so that's all that matters anyway.
Why try to look further?
We'll only convince ourselves of what we think is true.

We cling to our religions, our gods,
our little ideals and supposed-to-bes
because that's all we know and ever need to know--
anything more? Only what we think is there.
It matters when we think it does. And otherwise:
it doesn't exist at all.

Same sky. Same tree. Same deep shade of blue.
Same water, same grass, same map of the town you live in--
but we all see it differently.
Same atoms, same molecules arranged:
only the perception differs.
Not the view--it's our eyes.

*New page*

Grasping blindly for a truth that swiftly wings away--
leaving me empty-handed and wondering: Was it ever there?
Believe what you want to believe
and that's reality enough. Nothing is more real than this.
Find something that works, something you like.
& careful: search too deep & you might find out
there's nothing beneath the surface.

Layers of superficiality. Underneath:
space. But we fill it with our transparent pastel pictures
of what maybe-might-shouldbe there.
[Of what we want to exist.]
Look up to the sky, to the stars--they're winking at you.
Really? No. But you still get up early on Sundays
and kneel to appease your own beliefs
and pray to yourself.

*New page*

We write about the surface, the superficial,
because that's where we live.
There is nothing but the present
& that slips into the past so quickly, so lightly,
its gossamer fibers so hard to catch in my clumsy fingers
as time passes. [Time is our invention.
But like everything else we think matters,
it does.]

We live minute-to-minute, thought-to-thought,
day-to-slightly-different-day.
The present passes. We mourn its loss
and move into the next moment
which dies as quickly as the first.
No use trying to hold on. Memories are never the same.
Maybe don't try to remember--live it.
Life is a bundle of short-lived moments
that disintegrate in my hands, shimmering powder
washed away by the tears of the next moment to come.
Rate is distance over time, & everything's always moving.
Tears never stay frozen for long.

The idea that nothing means anything
isn't a frightening one, because it means nothing in itself.
But reality becomes more subjective even than we knew before.
Where's the stability we crave? Or does that mean nothing too?

Everything's a blank slate, a canvas
upon which we paint what we think we should see.

*New page*

We built a society of superficiality
atop--nothing. Space. Black. Gray.
White canvas, devoid of paint,
for now.

We write about our thin slice of reality
as we know it, holding it up to the light.
What would we see if we looked further?
Nothing.

There has to be more than this, we think.
[Something beyond those coldly winking stars.]
But we see only blankness, a white-painted wall
where we project the belief-of-the-month, of the year, of the life.
Nothing there,
except what we see with our subjective eyes.

I truly believe this now.
Not very comforting, is it?
Maybe that's why we turn to religion, to beliefs:
They soften the blade-sharp metal edges
of what we maybe already knew was there.

There's nothing in the sky.
Above a city, a red glow shines:
lights & lives reflected in the smog-filled clouds.
Some may see the silhouette of a great old man,
a kind dictator with powerful hands
that can rip apart the world. I see nothing.
The stars wink; not at me.

This isn't a belief in science. This isn't a belief at all.
A disbelief. An unbelief. The ramblings of a fifteen-year-old in her notebook.
Nothing.

"Smite me, Zeus," I yelled, laughing, sprinting through the rain,
wet arms stretched high to the empty gray sky. Kill me, gods.
No thunderbolt comes to strike me, no lightning kisses my skin.
I grin atheist defiance at the rain-streaked world.

*New page*

You'll finish reading this.
You might agree, or think,
or mutter This is crap
and click to the next post.
Continue life as normal. What else do you do?
The world hasn't changed. [Has your perception?]
Reality is the same as it always was.

And only what you believe is ever real.