How Hollywood Failed

How Hollywood Failed

Nothing stays whole. Everything splinters
into shards, fragments of ‘used to be’,
‘never was’, or ‘might have been’.
We work hard for simplicity.
Once gained, it seems meaningless,
as do our lives. And each part of the world falls off,
or so it seems to the untrained eye,
that disbeliever at Pompeii
claiming no harm, no foul,
even when magma turns his feet to stone.
Are we doomed to repeat history
or is history doomed to repeat us?
What if Columbus, deterred by erroneous minds,
had conceded that he was wrong,
the earth was indeed flat,
allowing himself to be locked away while
his boats turned to moldy remnants, his
sailors disappearing over the edge of the world.

Do lost souls find their way back eventually,
or do they wander alone forever?
I’m not sure of the answer, just like
I’m not sure whether Pluto is aware
of the fact that it is no longer a planet.
Do planets have conscious minds like human beings?

When the time comes, I will gladly jump
from the highest precipice with you,
no questions asked. It will be refreshing
to not exist for once, to n’existe pas with you
where wars are only things we read about in history books
or reenact with toy swords in our backyards.
Where calendar dates dissolve,
like flesh decayed, leaving nothing but bone,
we will ‘not exist’ with fingers crossed and eyes wide shut.
“Fractions fit together never form the whole”,
therefore, whole is but a lie.
Parts long to touch but never align just right.
Every morning, we’ve fewer eyelashes, hair,
fingernails, thoughts. Are we nothing but imperfections?
Entropy seems so vast, yet
it cannot exist without loss of the whole –
which, in its nonexistence,
cancels out the universe.
I was lost once. But no longer.
A verbless noun can still stand on its own.
The girl born four-fingered cannot knit,
she lacks opposable thumbs and therefore
cannot declare a thumb war. I win by default.

We will live like kings when society lies in ruins.
We will fashion houses out of twigs,
and rejoice, even when our hair grows grey,
even if we set our souls afire
just to watch them burn.
And each part of the whole will fall,
like leaves in Autumn,
the sun rays in your eyes.
The world will revolve around your lips
and I will write you love sonnets.
Where there is no ink, I will use blood.
I shall be the new Shakespeare.
Our lives will join together,
like a bruise progressing backwards,
like your sweater unraveling into spools of thread.
What of when we will exist purely in soul?
When the moon ceases to reflect sunlight,
when our parachutes refuse to unfurl so
we plummet.
I’m ill-equipped for skydiving,
less so for rejection.
You hand me my words,
we’ll toast incongruity
like we’re defining wicked.

Ten feet under salt and sea,
yet still I attempt breathing as your fingers unlace
me, I’m a flower in bloom.
We’re no love out of convenience,
even if we are, forgive me, but
I’d rather cling to my vain, tortured semblance of romance.
I’d not give it up for my weight in gold.
I’d rather be useless and beautiful,
like a plastic fruit display in the heart of the Sahara,
then admit my whole existence exists purely in my own imagination.
I will savor our game of pretend,
played out amongst this meaningless war,
this corrupt society which we are forced to inhabit
until our veins cease to function,
hearts slowing their rhythmic pump.
I hope my pale visage is the last thing you ever see.