mirage-a-trois in poetry

as long as you keep navigating by the mirage of perfection
that stays at the horizon no matter how fast you can run
you are never going to get to the good stuff that is
actually here to be found, experienced, loved, etc
it may keep your legs in shape but that is that

what “jack of all trades, master of none” means is
you’ll never be a perfect master of any one thing
but by being good at many things, you’ll find the
synergies between them, inventing new forms that
others will later “master” like obsessive rubes

because inventing is cooler than mastering
because creating is better than succeeding
because changing is better than finishing

you are riding that line between hope and presumption
just like the rest of the species, all us weird spirits
though not all of us will admit this to ourselves
let alone admit any of this to each other
we think that admitting process is admitting weakness
we think that if we lie we can make our lies reality
even though all of that’s crap
even though all of that is just
softening us for marketing tricks
even though it can only work for a little while
before that kind of thinking comes crashing down
and even then, only if you fall into dumb luck

fear is just another form of hope
twisted, corrupted and inverted
but a form of hope nonetheless
fear is just the anticipation
of the loss of all your hope
fear is a burning hole where
you know the hope should be

hate isn’t the opposite of love, it’s the
absence, a vacuum where love should’ve been
should be, hatred is that raw sucking wound
and dark is not the opposite of light
and cold isn’t the opposite of warm
and hate isn’t the opposite of love
they’re all aching absences thereof

the illusion of total control is just as
toxic as the illusion of no control is
it’s even scarier to admit that you have
a little control over the few things
right in front of you but not much
more than that, just that one sliver
the comfort and ease of extremes are always tempting
the comfort and ease of extremes are always lies

you can choose to embrace change when life demands it
and you can choose to love no matter what else hurts
and I can’t tell you many things in this life
but I can tell you that love and change
sure beat the fuck out of hate and death
beat the living bleeding shit out of them
and this is what we have to go on