Narcissus, is that you?

If anyone would’ve asked either of us before the technological revolution,
we both would’ve replied that we’d never last,
but we cheat with contact lenses so we won’t walk directly into the guillotines dangling from the cedar trees,
and we cheat with off-white colored dew drops that we carry in florescent flashlights hollowed out so we won’t notice our fevers of 104 degrees,
we cheat so we can both stand in front of our separate cash registers from 9-5 five days out of the week.

My father believes in the after-life,
believes we can shed our snakeskins and dance freely without bones.
My mother believes in Jesus Christ,
believes that we aren’t the only ones to blame for these tar pits we’ve curled our toes into.
My brother believes that I’m going to save lives someday,
teach everyone else to disconnect their minds from their bodies,
and dance freely,

strung up as marionettes with our invisible strings attached to invisible wooden posts, like upside-down crosses,
they looked so much like our own neurosis,
and we’d cry NARCISSUS, IS THAT YOU? 

At every mirrored shard we’d dance across. 

We scoff at natural selection and use Darwin’s theories to wipe off our whiskey smiles to impress our next Monday-morning headache,
we use Darwin’s theories to wipe off the stains of one another
on our recycled skin.

We wonder why they threw Galileo behind bars,
when all he wanted to do
was prove that there was something more than this.
We cheer when the bones of a terrorist are strung up like glass beads
and worn on the necklaces of every patriotic man to ever walk across the channel 4 news.
But isn’t one of the ten commandments to never kill?
An eye for an eye?
A LIFE FOR A LIFE.
If you killed 50 men, would you have to die
50 times?
RESURRECT ME, I AM JESUS CHRIST,
I STILL HAVE 49 TIMES LEFT TO DIE.
Charles Manson would’ve gotten a kick out of that,
let’s put him between a ‘rock and a hard place,’
and watch him squirm to escape.

We all laugh when we fall to our knees

in our self-induced neurotic mania,

Shrieking "DON'T THE LEAVES FALL OUT OF LOVE WITH THE TREES

AT THIS VOLUME?"

And we all know that in the morning,

we're going to compare our celestial bruises to the few remaining sections of our pure skin,

and laugh--

NARCISSUS, IS THAT YOU?

Don’t look in the mirror,
that makes you full of yourself.
Don’t drink before 8 PM,
that makes you too bold,
you’re going to pass out early 
and miss out on ‘all the fun’
and miss out on ‘all your friends.’
If anyone would’ve asked us before we made it official,
we both would’ve replied we’d never last.
I look for you under every white satin sheet I come across,
NARCISSUS, IS THAT YOU?