The Golden Lion Tamarin
(An Original Poem)
Orange and bright,
Colorful and light,
Is the golden lion tamarin.
Climbing through the trees,
Swingin’ round with ease,
Is the golden lion tamarin.
Hanging high and tight,
Resting in the night,
Is the golden lion tamarin.
Showing its fiery fur,
Filling the forest with color,
Is the golden lion tamarin.
Sum
In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a
new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together.
You spend two months driving the street in front of your house. You
sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through
magazines while sitting on a toilet.
You take all your pain at once, all twenty-seven intense hours of it. Bones break, cars crash,
skin is cut, babies are born. Once you make it through, it’s agony-free for the rest of your
afterlife.
But that doesn’t mean it’s always pleasant. You spend six days clipping your nails. Fifteen
months looking for lost items. Eighteen months waiting in
line. Two years of boredom: staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal. One year
reading books. Your eyes hurt, and you itch, because you can’t take a shower until it’s your
time to take your marathon two-hundred-day shower. Two weeks wondering what happens
when you die. One minute realizing your body is falling. Seventy-seven hours of confusion.
One hour realizing you’ve forgotten someone’s name. Three weeks realizing you are wrong.
Two days lying. Six weeks waiting for a green light. Seven hours vomiting. Fourteen minutes
experiencing pure joy. Three months doing laundry. Fifteen hours writing your signature. Two
days tying shoelaces. Sixty-seven days of heartbreak. Five weeks driving lost. Three days
calculating restaurant tips. Fifty-one days deciding what to wear. Nine days pretending you
know what is being talked about. Two weeks counting money. Eighteen days staring into the
refrigerator. Thirty-four days longing. Six months watching commercials. Four weeks sitting in
thought, wondering if there is something better you could be doing with your time. Three
years swallowing food. Five days working buttons and zippers. Four minutes wondering what
your life would be like if you reshuffled the order of events. In this part of the afterlife, you
imagine something analogous to your Earthly life, and the thought is blissful: a life where
episodes are split into tiny swallowable pieces, where moments do not endure, where one
experiences the joy of jumping from one event to the next like a child hopping from spot to
spot on the burning sand.
I’m Honest, I Swear!
(An original short Poem)
My sister’s a liar,
My brother’s a stealer,
My Dad’s pants are on fire,
My Mother’s a schemer.
However, I am honest,
So listen to me.
And put your ears on,
So you hear me speak.
My sister’s a donkey,
My brother’s a bear,.
My parents are rabbits,
I’m honest, I swear!
