I've known genius.
It lives on the corner, in the shack
With the shopping cart in the frontyard.
It suffers in Palestine,
Waits for days with sun not blocked with pessimism
Inhabits minds of
The men you couldn’t spare a nickel for, sleeping on park benches with tarps as blankets
Can’t remember the last time it was sober, doesn’t care to
It locks itself away in hotel bathrooms,
Swallows and injects chemicals found under your sink, leaves putrid stains of unknown origin on the floor
It comes and goes; summer, autumn, winter, spring
Summer
Like every other mind before it, besides from some unseen extreme in the eyes of staff,
All are walking zombies,
Carves markings so you know it was there and went
Like summer
Hot, blistering, summer
It is in the hands of young boys with scorched feet and swollen stomachs
Where the only thing it ever digests is the cold words of a man who is somehow its father
Ramshackle girls, overgrown trees
Abuse in every other suburban house
It comes home to no one but it’s younger brother from the grocery store,
Hands and feet aching and still makes that macaroni and cheese
In the dark sunrises of 4 AM
It’s mind soars with the birds in the sky above it,
Above the roof it settles on.
For the laborers whose degree never left the printing press,
For artists driven to madness,
For the children who see no apparent path laid out for them,
For the refugees and escapees and immigrants and everything in between,
For youth afraid to grow like flowers buried in the soil,
For the ones under the same sky
Who understand this alike,
I have known genius.
Genius lives in you.
