What it means to be here

is to notice death is an option.

What age was that?

To reject that life is a blessing.

To enliven a dinner party

by pondering perdition

& damning its demons.

To witness demons

in orchestrated provocation,

as in wartime

& stillbirth.

To theorize the white light at death

is simply blood sinking

eyelid to bone.

To estimate the speed of reality,

as if madness is a rusted,

whipping carousel ride

& can be stopped.

To watch oneself be mad.

To seem mad, but it’s mirth.

To look up “seem.”

To read it means to give an impression.

To kiss the entire avenue,

lairs of liars, mouths teeming

with circumspect tongues.

To taste plum jam

off a slick, misbegotten neck.

God is equipped

& deferential—

to realize this.

What age was that?

To wonder if today is actually another day

without God.

To declare the world tried you

& kept you.

To mistake this for destiny.

To dread it’s about nothing:

this.

To impose the beguiling anyway.

To accept what’s undisclosed

is what it means to be here.

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FELICE ARENAS is a poet a taught creative writing at NYU. Work has appeared in Huffington Post, Entropy, PoetsArtists, and High Shelf Press.