Welcome to Your First Life
A Poem
I left behind a darkness rising
and stooped behind a welcome sign.
It read
Welcome to your first life:
your graduation leaves you
knowing less than you began with
and no time to put practice into practice.
At the moment, you are nothing.
At the moment, you think you are
everything.
Lesson one: learn to be alone.
You will nourish and be nourished
by all that is and was before you.
Lesson two: a whale fall.
The past isn’t as dead as you already are,
just asleep
awaiting awakening.
Lesson three: the nucleus of the problem is
you are the servant of the denizens of a world
that does not care and never has
and you will love them for it
and feed them your own blood.
The word ‘human’ is no longer abstract.
Pretend you know the definition of ‘human.’
You are hungry, too.
Nourish your mind
and the stomach will borrow.
Welcome to your first life.
Lesson four: the beautiful problem with poetry
is saying without being heard
things you only know the meanings of
but not the names.
You will call these holy.
Welcome to your first life.
Yours is the Kingdom.
Yours is the power.
Yours is the famine.
I walked ahead ten miles and turned myself around.
I let my Kingdom rot and thought I should be happier.
We should all try being happier.