The Grand Vaccine of Poetry
I’m tired of walking around thinking
about who loves who and me and when and why
about what’s the point of going out
and working and painting
my face with the smile of one of these
young caballeros making a move
as if I was even close to twenty anymore.
if I could just walk and eat and walk
and eat and walk the rest of my life, well
I wouldn’t need love, really
but I can’t and I do need love.
I need to love myself which is maybe
even harder than loving another tbh
with this long list of crimes
and a checkered past, a rap sheet
that not even the best crow
should take a peek at.
it all just begs the question:
can I transplant my heart with poetry
without having a word attack
of the heart?
the problem is that
when I sit here writing, a girl
in a floral red and black summer dress
sits down across from me and my dick rings
like an antennae, like a phone
even though surely she is younger
than half my age, I stare
up above her through a thick cloud
of cigarette smoke hoping
the night will fall to pieces
before I decide the only solution
is to kill myself
with mountains of pulled pork
or croquetas de mariscos.
when I look around the terrace
of 100 Montaditos Santa Cruz de Tenerife
I wonder: why isn’t anyone writing
as a solution to the desire for love
in the midst of this capitalist pandemic
so the sickness of loneliness isn’t too much
to bear, so that the face across the table
with barely a smile isn’t the only like
accumulated from the night?
so that the heart that is turning
into a machine (injected with AI
just like every other product in the world
right now) can be reverted, rolled back
and protected by the grand vaccine
of poetry, the saviour of humanity
in the digital age of nothing
filled shit posts regarding the recent
trending ban and then instant unban
of Tik Tok.