Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

A drunk horse thief who stops drinking is just a sober horse thief,

But how many fucking pomegranates are in your poems? Versus how many iPhones?

The only people who speak in certainties are zealots and tyrants.”

Living happened till it didn’t. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.

And would the gratitude for that flower be contaminated by the awareness, or ignorance, of the bodies turning to soil beneath it?

didn’t know what any of it meant, but I knew it meant intensely.

A tantrum of feathers fell to the parking lot asphalt.

After that first kiss, I wouldn’t have questioned anything. Possibility, freedom. If a great winged angel had come up from the earth and burst apart, I would have gathered its feathers.

then the mortal sin of the martyr must be pride, the vanity, the hubris to believe not only that your death could mean more than your living, but that your death could mean more than death itself—which, because it is inevitable, means nothing.

I painted because I needed to. What I really loved, what I love, is having-painted. That was the high. Making something that would never have existed in the entirety of humanity had I not been there at that specific moment to make

When the world was all kneecaps and corners of coffee tables, fear kept you safe.”

You can put a saddle on anger, Cyrus.”

demand to be forgiven. I demand the same leniencies, rationalizations, granted to mediocre men for centuries.

Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it. Cyrus understood that now, and stepped.