Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

13. mauve

you held my palms one day, thumbs pressed along the blue veins

half emerging from my wrists, my hands,

and told me: "we must be the most miserable beings on earth,

knowing our fates are fastened

in these unchanging lines, indiffering minds.

knowing the corrupted rust circulate within

our bloodstreams, our quintessences

can never be filter clean.

you're a deadbeat idiotic believer,

and a slimy opportunist asshole.

we both refuse to gorge out our hearts,

despite willingly selling off our souls.

we can't pull out our tongues and teeth

but happily filing away our body

to the crack of the coffins' lids, crafted by

weary palms and calloused feet pads

of bone dry clay, fired and and hardened from

self-inflicted anguish and grief that start and go nowhere."

i turned my hands and curled my fingers around

your lovely, sturdy bones, your gangly spine, your soft fingertips,

and said: "yet, what are we,

but the parts we lost to be whole?

perhaps we spend our life in this long anticipation for

grander things than ourselves,

grander behaviours, beliefs, ideas

that we can abandon and adopt and flaunt.

perhaps we put ourselves on a platter

to show the holes carved out of chest

and the gulfs clawed out of our conscience

differ from each other.

perhaps, we are all desperate to be

a contradicting dichotomy walking on two legs,

crawling on all fours, along the blue veins and red arteries,

along the twisting narrow pathway leading to our graves,

emerging and submerging under the skin of our arms, our legs.

if you take our misery that away,

what else can we tell ourselves?

what else can we believe in?

what else are we?

we're the most miserable beings on earth

the same way we make ourselves

the happiest creatures to survive and thrive.

knowing our fates are tied

in these uniform masts, persistent illusions.

knowing our existence, our creation

are as bastardized as our origin.

knowing all that,

and choosing to believe in none of them."

⸻

mauve: a blueish purple

prompt: palmful