inappropriate sounds in poetry

sometimes I wonder if each consciousness is its own reality
a parallel dimension for each of us
our shared experience an averaging out of the overlaps
if the seemingly permanent real is just an area shared
by all of our personal bubbles in a gestalt cosmology
we agree on calling reality or space or time
or at least I‘ll wonder if that would be a good idea
for some kind of science fiction story

sometimes I will fart so loudly even though my clothes
confirm it was only gas my underwear unsoiled
I will still immediately take a shower because I just feel gross
even if it is four in the morning I will shoot up out of bed
go wash the nothing off because it was so loud that I just
feel dirty and can’t shake it until I’ve showered

I try to reconcile these parts of myself that don’t seem to fit together
both ridiculous in very different ways all these parts of my mind
my thoughts habits loves fears they feel incompatible at times
junk philosophy and imagining I’ve shit myself when I haven’t
they are not of a piece but they are of a piece because
here I am, I guess

my education and my flights of being deeply naïve
my sureness that I’m right and
my anxiousness that can cripple my ability to do
anything of note for weeks at times
my humor how it can sometimes cut through the pain to joy
can sometimes be thoughtlessly cruel in formation
they’re all in there in the calculus of the self
even though they seem to clash or cancel out
no, here I am

thinking about consciousness as string theory
imagining my shameful farts still clinging to me
via some primitive form of obsessive magic
I don’t have the damnedest idea how
they are the same person and yet here I am
for better and for worse at once here I am
I know I’ll never understand why
these things all live as parts of me
I can’t, you can’t
I just have to make my peace with it
when I can
here and there

Last updated July 11, 2016