There are times when I miss it,
throwing back shots
with friends, bumpin’ that bumpin’
as Charli might say
Feeling oceanic low, getting seraphic
high, just to feel infinitely lower
on those blurry nights, lighting
the butt-end of cigarettes, crying
in the passenger seat of Leo’s
beater, remembering that thing I did
when I was 7 or 12 or 23
& how that makes me
a horrible person.
Or that one night, I went skiing
in the middle of summer on a sketchy
side street & my God! it hit me
that none of this
matters, that we are on a tiny
rock that is quickly being destroyed
by the ones to whom it gave birth
gives life, mothered, nurtured
& our burning rock is in an infinitesimal
nook of a runaway galaxy determined,
as I am, to go somewhere in its life
but that somewhere is
everywhere and nowhere, & those places
are not mutually exclusive if you really
throw some brains
behind it. My God! it hit me:
wandering for billions of years & many
eons to go, just to return to gas/
stardust
& there are days when I miss it,
afraid of success/change, leaving
behind held hands, complacency/comfort
in sadness’s hostile warm womb, terrified
the destination may be CGI simulation,
too inconscient with sweet
nostalgia to rejoice
in the journey.
Kashawn Taylor is a formerly incarcerated writer from Connecticut. His poems, essays, and stories have been published by such journals and magazines as Poetry Magazine, The Offing, Miracle Monocle, and more. His collection of poetry, subhuman., was released in March 2025 by Wayfarer Books. Keep up with him online: www.kashawntaylor.com or Instagram: @kashawn.writes.
