denial

wyatt hong

spring 2016

I accept that humans have no free will.

Every thought I have, every movement I make,

Is not mine, but surrenders to the cold wake

Of history like a leaf on a lake.

I accept the claims of biology

That consciousness is a means of multicellular life,

A temporary constitution of my genes,

Slave to natural selection.

I accept that we are made of atoms,

That we ourselves are particles of negligible mass,

Our greatest collisions accomplishing nothing

To change the course of the vessel

Inside which we are made and unmade,

That the Sun and I came from one burst of light

And will return to a gray equilibrium

Like the fog above Chapel St. tonight,

That these words are the claw marks

Of an animal, moved by the unintended beauty

Of the cage that surrounds him.

My nails will not break.