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Ideas persist.
They persist because they define something that may define something else that inevitably defines us.
They persist because we are only the little bits that we share with each other,
Because we believe in each other,
that we can tell this story and, if enough people believe in it
then a part of us will live forever.
Then the incident of existence will not have been one of vanity.
Then perhaps curiosity, our god, can rest easy knowing that
,if only for a moment, we saw the eternal.
So we set our souls ablaze, clinging to what we think needs to remain,
how it needs to be, and what it can be allowed to become.
We straddle time, pull her mane back by the reigns and pray to the gods that we may never be flung off back from whence we came – nothing.
Where there is no one or no thing to begin the act of consciousness that may lead to a single moment of nostalgia about a not so secret handshake.
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This poem, like an idea, refuses to end, continuing to change shape in order to leech onto your attention for a life of its own.
Like an idea this poem was birthed on a whim – a singular moment that had lasting shifting impact.
Like a poem, ideas need audiences to live and are open to interpretation.
Audiences, as they tend to be, are fickle.
As such the power of an idea is democratic.
Like a poem, ideas are only as powerful as they can hold us captive,
Like gods, ideas only exist if we believe.
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There will always be those who believe.
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And so ideas persist, changing their shape in order to leech onto our attention for a life of their own.
And because identity is nothing but a collection ideas, we find our selves tugged in multiple directions.
We face a choice to grow and contain these changing definitions, or to let these ideas go.
Binaries are unwinnable.
We win anyway, striking half non bargains with demons we didn’t know we had for a few more moments in this infinite game.
We participate our collective victories and defeats, holding half fulfilled promises and double bladed bargains for each other.
“Here,” we say, “Hold this admiration, just stay on that pedestal for me.”
“Here,” we exchange, “hold this shame, continue to reflect parts of me I don’t want to see.”
“Here” you want to say, “here’s an idea worth keeping, one that will keep us going at keeping going. I know I won’t be here for very long, and neither will most of us, but I really hope this idea will. Help me keep it alive. It was dying when I found it, but I’ve since done my best to make it something worth believing in. It might take some attention now and then but I really think if we put our minds together, this one just might last forever – tell a friend.”
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But ideas are not words,
and gods are not poems
so we believe,
and we pray.
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