Declaration

By Wilson Koewing

The terrifying nostalgia is a cycle.
We move on one,
two,
four,
any number of wheels.
Still the backbone of the caveman.

Character 1: Do you have a bottle opener?
Character 2: Do you have blood coursing through your veins?

It’s only dreams and wild stares.
Climbing bunches and bunches of stairs.

Cavernous,
my dreams defy logic and stand still.
In the land of the landfill,
the man who can will.

It’s vicious from the start,
but next I take part in Streetcar as Stanley.
I’ve got unlimited emotions and the ability to repaint my house with a spray can.
What am I worried about?
Going out?
A sad way to pronounce,
the place I was born, live, denounce?
Take a trip that some grocery store bag options allow.
Stand staring at mysterious beauty,
somehow owned by man,
confound.
Hope for my own piece.
Search the moving pictures of the stars to chase my dreams.

I can’t grasp.
I’ve got these glass icepick hands
and as it is life,
I’m too nice to quicksand.

I drink and I smoke.
It’s why I’m never left alone with children
Who walk on upright silverware highways
Sniffing glue and cursing because they’re chained to their elders.

If everything is sad cover your face with the Glad
and stop breathing.
I feel for the globe
as I stand on the edge of the Earth.
Prophets long dead,
dreaded my birth.

I became one with the Earth while clutching the herb,
headlights in my way, son I duck, and I jerk.
as my mind explodes at ninety.
Hydroplaning across the black slick pavement
feels like Jesus walks.

There’s a knife by my side and a lighter in my pocket.
Do I cut the cigarette or light the rocket?
How can I know these things?
There are angels in my presence,
but I can’t notice wings.
There’s a burning match in my grip.
My gaze is through the glass that’s reflection reveals the madness.
The pen is my only weapon.
I can only destroy,
and my only dream is to create.

As a perfect penitentiary,
this place is meant to be,
nothing but sentencing.

You only saw what you were looking at
but that was behind you.
I considered ending it there,
And ultimately decided to.

Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. He strives to innovate, never to emulate, though, figuratively, to immolate.