watson's cricks in poetry

I think about evolution
about how it doesn’t work
how most think it works
as if it has a point it is
trying to get to where
it is perfect where
you are perfect
then it’ll just
stay there

evolution isn’t intentional
evolution cannot have intent
things just keep churning to
try and better survive and
if the factors change then
you figure survival again
there’s no end-point
no static goal
you just keep
getting along
to get along

generation to generation
the remixes within our genes
cough up little errors in the
turnover of continuation and
most of the time they don’t
do a goddamned thing and
some of the time they kill
kill us horribly but then
every once in a while
one of the accidents
works better in this
newest world so it
gets passed down
that’s all
that’s evolution
no invisible hand
not cruel nor kind
just mistakes that
occasionally work

and I think about myself
and how broken I have been
broken I’ve been again and again
and pieced myself back together
very very badly
barely functioning at times
like a lawnmower with a
deep rumble and a cough
that just barely does the job
but straining gets it done

all the little glitches
that pop into my mind
because of all the ways
I am held together by
mere bailing wire and spit
chewing gum and duct tape
stubbornness and fool hope
trauma after failure after
bitter loss throwing my
cloud of blue smoke everywhere
still moving forward somehow

and those glitches are
my little stories
my weird mashed-up songs
my obtuse jokes
my
occasional insights
they are so often
the only things I
actually do right
and they’re all by mistake
they’re all just the random static
of living almost entirely broken
some of them survive
as accidental code
getting passed down
getting passed on

this is what my life is
this is what my writing is
this is what evolution is
this is who I am
for better and worse
and better for the worse
every once in a while
from time to time