Lifecycle of bugs and broken poets

~It's my birthday and I wrote this~

There is nothing in the glass bowl,
only the light that turns it iridescent.
On the table top,
it spins along
the merry go round
of our egg shell earth,
that'll crack
at the slightest touch.
Death rides shotgun with all of us.
Look up at the sky
and watch the colors
echo what you feel.
Look down on the ground
and you'll rest your eyes on little ol' me,
chasing cars and chasing dreams,
building sugar cube mountains
the way i build my
machiavellian schemes,
squirming at the pearly gates
of the entomologist's table.
I'll do my courtesies
and follow their rules,
slog in the anthill,
collect nectar from blooms,
praise the kings and queens
to avoid the sword.
Sheep in wolf's clothing
always a bloody coward.

I'll sing my swan song
from my silk coccoon,
dipped in hot water
like some medieval
dandy bard with a hip flask.
I know I won't last
the truth of my tedious existence,
the daily vocal humdrum
monotony that sticks to you
like beeswax bubblegum.
How do we ever forgive ourselves
for all the things we did not become.
Sitting in the crotch of the enormous tree,
not being able to choose which fruit to eat
and starving to death
in the pile of rotten plums.

I have been told
I'm the brightest candle
in this empty theater
of snuffed out possibilities.
Someday, I could live
on a cottagecore farm,
have kids with rhyming names.
I could rebel against the system
make money or win acclaim.
Or i could sit and rot
in this orchard i planted:
my unchanged bedsheets,
the pile of unwashed clothes
on my desk and the mountain
of books i should probably read.
It's only human
to want to be remembered,
to have our faces encased
in lockets,
to have our graves marked
or our words preserved
like the bleached bones
of a fish fossil under the sun,
who had swam in this ocean
some 450 million years before me.

At night, I lie in bed and hope
death is like falling asleep,
soft and peaceful,
with no memories or
wasteful ambitions
to weigh me down.
And even though in life
I was a prickly crown of thorns
with my hypocrisy and
contratarian bullshit,
when i leave, i hope
I can leave the world
with a little more poetry.

Author's Note

I wrote this on my birthday (7 july). I haven't been active on this site for so long and been busy with my residency exams. I hope i can return as soon as I'm done with them. I'll review all the ones who review me though. ♡
Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement. I would appreciate that a lot!! Thank you for staying with me and reading my words! I'm so grateful to all of you!

I took the allegory of the tree from The Bell Jar. I replaced the fig tree with plums because the latter suited the rhyme scheme better lol.

Reviews

[Pete]

whew - real, honest, introspective, existential and philosophical. what a manifesto. enjoyed the strong imagery with brilliant, creative wording. a very memorable, free-flowing read that i would think is liberating for the author. cool, clever title and love the ending - life is indeed to short. even my muse thoreau would applaud such thoughts as you share here. well done, bravo!

[Moonie]

Thank you so much for the stellar review! Thoreau and I have pretty close birthdays though lol 😂.

[Onlyme]

Wow, a perfect descriptive, thought provoking, kalidoscope of images, emotions and an introspective look at life and oneself! To which also made me the reader reflect on my own life, as I read about your thoughts, feelings and perspective of yours!

[emmajoygreen]

A read to read and then read over and over AND over again! First class poetry, clear eyes that miss little, a mind who knows how to juggle the all around and near make it yours in the looking. Tempted to call this a (near) treatise UNIQUE. I will, it is! Certainly allegory; thank air and inhalation for The Bell Jar! Just read a second time, it should be published..

'I know I won't last
the truth of my tedious existence,
the daily vocal humdrum
monotony that sticks to you
like beeswax bubblegum.
How do we ever forgive ourselves
for all the things we did not become.
Sitting in the crotch of the enormous tree,
not being able to choose which fruit to eat
and starving to death
in the pile of rotten plums.'

No secret, you will certainly last! Superb flow. extraordinary wording.. plus exampling a would and will.. then I DID!

[Arundass TP]

Interesting poem though long. Enjoyed reading.

[Thomas W Case]

Tremendous work. Powerful and poignant.

[keith]

this is one of those writes that draws one in
into a labyrinth of twists turns surprises
i found my reading cadence fine tuned enjoying the voyage downstream the off to who knows where
and all from the safety of my screen

i dont know how to say any other verbiage but ... thanks mucho!
damn you have an expansive word knowledge KOOL!

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This is fabulous, Moonie. I love the strong visual descriptions and projections produced on the reader's inward eye. It reads like a personal memoir and reflection on personal choice. Happy belated birthday and I do hope it was a good one. I really enjoyed the read. Bless, F.

[Einstein Noodle]

big fat happy birthday Moonie!! i have missed you as most certainly others have as well... i think we spend our lives learning how to let go ... and in the end it is the breath of life that made us cry .. may leave in a sigh .. for those who find peace ... this world and any "nether" world is a cloud but surely, i believe, we will see clearly .. and will most likely be in for a surprise of one kind or another ... i am sorry on this your wonderful B-day .. your thoughts and poetry turns to thoughts of old souls ... not you dear moonbeam .. best wishes in all your exams :)
E.

[Moonie]

Hi, E, so good to see you here! Thank you for the review and the best wishes!