poem

 Opposites

The world of opposites hangs

Together in mutual reciprocity

One thing owing its existence

To the thing it’s not.

A tenuous foundation, to be sure,

For up and down are ultimately 

Contingent manifestations of gravity

And the difference between black and white

Hinges on the intensity of available light

But there’s a larger world

Of things lacking opposites

Abandoned nouns floating

Aimlessly, lacking reifying polarity 

Other than existence and non-existence 

Which isn’t as clarifying as yes and no or now and later 

Your dog is just your dog

And ice cream melts 

Mad has no opposite other than not mad 

And love laughs when you try to insist 

It would vanish if not for hate. 

Then you have this strange dichotomy

Between me and everything else.

Without the world I never exist

But when I’m gone the world remains.

How can this be? Where is your elegant symmetry?

Whatever happened to the comforting

Duality of semantic codependency? 

The truth is, I'm just sad.

The world, apparently, doesn’t need me and never has.

I’m all the radiant colors of a coral reef

Bleached white by an unexpected acidity 

I’m not the missing piece, the chiral molecule

Reflection the world sees

When it decides to gaze

At its face in the mirror.

I’m not the devastating loss that makes 

Its ultimate victory taste so sweet.

I suppose this is why I feel so alone

And remain a stranger even to myself.

There is no opposite to me,

No black to my white

Locking in a solid identity.

All I can do is make a substance of absence

Leave behind a big enough impression 

In the mold of the world

For someone to pour a sadness into.

I’m just here, a black pupil

Arrayed against the white 

Of the eye of the universe 

Letting in as much light as I can.

But once I’m gone, whatever’s left 

Goes back to being the darkness

That never knew how brightly

Its light once shined 

For a boy on the roof

Of a sad, broken home 

In a dying small town 

So long as I’m gone 

Not notice the stars

How much they shine

A darkness within 

A light never known 

So long as we shine

Like stars over homes 

For a boy all alone

A light in the dark

A night between days

A boy on a roof 

In a small dying town 

Not knowing it’s there

So long

   I’m 

Gone

8/10/25