Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear
Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.
Copyright © 2015 by Meghan O’Rourke. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 13, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
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It feels like you wrote this. can imagine you mulling over her words as you searched for the next passage to share ❤️
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I like the wordplay a lot.
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I had to come back to this one – it feels like you would nail a spoken word version of this ❤️
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