Yorke's Chorus
Updated: Oct 4, 2019

She asked if I could do it all again?
I responded no.
I don't like
to live, and
to live again
is to be…
She asked what if I tried another vessel?
I told her it's doubtful.
Because every existence is a
mouthful, and my jaws hurt from
having to clench too hard
to hold onto some degree
of who I am becoming.
She asked what if the timing was altered?
The era was never the error.
The human experience was faulty. Full
of impossibility. Of love. Of hate.
Of the three occuring in the
same life sentence, and then I'm
expected to explain how I feel-
I don't know what a feeling is.
But I've seen a dead sparrow
on the ground, wings broken from
ambition, and have been struck by
sensations similar to the silence frothing
from the bloody beak; I've always
thought my chest an empty nest,
for all the best intentions have
already flown the coop. And lately
I've been sleeping on these eggshells,
unable to avoid the crack of
reality as lambs flock to a
slaughter. No sir, I do not
love your daughter-I don't even
love myself. Because I was never
a thing meant to love, only
something to know. I am an
experience, not an explanation nor escapade.
She asked, if I could do it all over again,
what would I change?
I told her nothing.
because the results are
always the same. It's
always been the same
like when someone asks
"how are you?" and
you say "good" and
they reply with the
same statement, but both
have nothing but evil
to report. We stopped
caring about honesty, We
stopping thinking about an
answer, rather replying with
automated affirmations set up
six months in advance.
We stopped being human.
She asked, if I could do it all again,
what would I question?
I...
don't want
any answers to
life, nor my life
to respond to the existential
question: how does one live. I
don't want a conclusion, or
resolution; only a prison
cell with one
window facing
skyward
and shackles
so heavy that
to gaze at heaven
requires every muscle to move
in sync, and yet I stare.
Eyes bulging from sockets like
the snapped neck sparrow's
pupils wishing for
another inquiry
rather
than eternity.
But neither are
found in this state
of being, so I've become
accustomed to the state of affairs,
and choose to revolt against
any previous statements on
how to be.
See I
prefer
to be
a chant resounding
from the throats of
the crowd at the execution
block, I prefer to be coiled
rope connecting the guillotine, or
the whetstone activated moments
prior to the
beheading. I
don't
want to
be an end,
only the last thought
of some stranger's brief existence
before entering the nebula of nothing.
She asked, if I could stay...
I told her yes, and then no.
I don't know what I want,
but
I know it's not this again.
-written by Johnny Lee Chapman III