The Butterfly Is Implied
Jacob playing his set
giant clam shell hands
illuminated from below
the space between each finger on the keyboard
is like the rippled edge of a shell
like Venus emerges from
between songs he gives a treatise on existing
linking so many symbols
masks, larva (the butterfly is implied)
how we are nothing but each other
I am what I have
and I think of
my hearts not in me, it’s where they all are
he also says
don’t shit talk on death, it’s the special sauce that makes everything taste delicious
and I feel so connected in that moment
so alive for a second
I can’t help how sentimental I am
am I foolish
for making the connections
symbols and signs so comfortable and juicy
I used to draw mask after mask
and I was larva, of course
Green Wave is a song after Jamie’s Green Wave
I recently found the poem of his by the same name that must have been the basis for the song
its about surfing
he also compares himself to a spider in the ocean
in a way eerily similar
to the way my Green Wave does
I can’t help it
the knot in my throat at those synchronicities
I resent being treated young and foolish
by the practical people around me
it’s crazy that we are older now
than Jamie ever was
to be older than a big brother
death is the special sauce
I worry about my knot throat ways
what if they could they tip
into an illness
like my mom’s, like Jacob’s mom’s
I feel so abstract so often
nothing behind my face
can’t grasp the physical enough
to stay in
or hang out
I will never know enough
about books or basketball
flowers or history
and I worry about the egoism of art
I want to be the heartbalm
I want to be the stairstep
I want to be all of them, out there
reflect beauty back at the world
it’s all there and there’s nothing there
I want to be free
but I love how fences look, too
just moments, just glimmers, right?
the ocean in Santa Cruz
the butterflies in the trees
on the way to meet my sister’s baby
the sparkling arc
a spiral continues
and I think of Jamie’s quote about how
deciding the world is too sad to bring children into
just allows it to be so
and how we have to continue to believe
that we can live and laugh in the sun
and, anyway
the sun is the best artist
