But You Matter #Poetry by Gabriel Ricard @HmGabeRicard

But You Matter
Gabriel Ricard

Visit the places you’d like to call home someday.
Sit in a thin kitchen as cool and comfortable as a toaster.
Watch the construction workers rest but remain in motion.
 
While you’re at it,
be gracious, be kind, and tell the soft,
friendly features on the other side of the table
that you’re glad they’re doing so well.
 
Someone could then be fearlessly romantic
about being dedicated to telling us
what all of those things really mean.
They would write big, stupid stories,
and at least some of us would envy how they write,
and have no noticeable fucks to give
about the snide things we would probably say.
 
And you would remember when that paper
wanted to embrace a slow news day,
by talking to you about the thing you came up with
that a magazine published.
 
Then you would try to make sense
of all the miles you wasted on thinking
that at least some parts of what your good luck amounted to
were going to hold out forever.
 
And just for the hell of it,
you would stop being so resentful
for just a couple of minutes.
 
Getting back to reality
gets you back to suddenly wanting
to fly right the fuck out of that kitchen.
Away from the places you only ever get to visit.
 
But you don’t want to go back home either.
 
It’d be a lot nicer to have the freedom
of an empty space too large to notice little ol’ you.
 
Something with arrogant, desolate spectacle,
and the idea that it would take the rest of your life,
to find people who could play new characters
in the new mistakes you would eventually get around
to making.
 
But you’re probably just going to go back home.
 
Eventually,
there’s going to be another birthday
that you’re going to have to deal with.
 
People everywhere have the deliriously
high hopes of expecting you to be around for that.

PURCHASE BONDAGE NIGHT