poem

 Genesis

In the beginning

There’s not a huge separation

Between a good person and bad.

Good people have usually fucked 

Plenty of things up 

And damaged a few others beyond repair.

Well, he knows it.... As soon as he does it.

And maybe not at first, but eventually,

He comes around to owning it 

And just like that

He becomes one of the good people—

Out there doing his best,

Taking responsibility for dumb 

Decisions and ill-conceived actions

That damaged the ones

He should have protected.

And there he is, chipping away,

Desperately trying to make amends

For reasons that are nobody’s

Business but his own. 

The bad person has also fucked up,

No more or less than a good person.

But the bad guy denies it, elides it,

Blames someone else for your suffering.

There’s nothing to fix

In this perfect world of his own creation.

Most people hover around the nexus

Of good and evil,

Sometimes choosing to see,

Sometimes self-blinding

Like Oedipus Rex

Who gouged himself, not as

Punishment, per se, but self-preservation—

Better to endure it in darkness

Than risk the chance of passing a mirror and

Seeing it written in the lines of your own face.

At any rate,

Whichever one you choose

You have to be careful:

The next time it gets easier

And the time after that. 

Every prevarication removes a stone

From the load you were supposed to carry.

Before too long a significant divarication 

Opens up between you and the center—

Like sister languages calved from an ancient

Mother, evolving so much, each in turn,

You now a need a translator

To be able to talk to her.

It’s a short distance between good and bad

But takes a lifetime to get there, blah

Blah blah, someone said that already—

Who cares, it was new to me. 

Here, in the bad place 

What’s “good” is only desire

Achieved by force of will

And the “bad” things mere invectives

Shot like arrows into the hearts

Of anyone who claims otherwise.

That’s all it boils down to—

Lie to yourself or tell the truth.

Write the story of yourself, yourself

Or ask the people you love

To write it for you. 

1/27/26