A poem is a billion corpses | Teen Ink

A poem is a billion corpses

May 6, 2024
By SelF612 BRONZE, New City, New York
SelF612 BRONZE, New City, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

The poem that everyone loves,
bright and young,
is born from scraps—
not wired through letters, one-by-one,
nor paved by words, piece-by-piece,
but conceived from a graveyard
as towering as a volcano.

All those poems that no one knows
sprout up in the billions, sunken in the rock,
inhaling
and subsequently exhaling
their first and final breaths:
electric sand sinking from the clouded mind.
Yet, dust that they are, their corpses
can fill a person up:
cleanse their liver,
seed their lungs,
and fertilize their heart,
so that, at last, a flower may blossom out the throat,
expecting to wilt
when the second ends, and instead choke
on ink and air.

Thus, the mundane black fruit,
plucked straight from the lips,
is both fresh and rotten—
tastes of both nectar and ichor.
Ink still damp, yet has stained
a billion layers beneath:
The poem that everyone loves.



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