Holding Hands On The Precipice

Listen to a reading of this poem:

❖

From our perch here on the edge of armageddon
we are safe to gush out our love over everything,
because we’ve got nothing left to save it for
and nothing left to lose.

I place slippery wet YES kisses on the black crows in your stomach
and on the glowing red cardinal birds who fill the night sky.
I hold your precious heart in my hands and my eyeballs grow vines into it
and I weep round sloppy joy while telling you that you are perfect.

There is great beauty to be found in the oceans choked with garbage,
in the coughing poverty streets filled with schizophrenic prophets and opioid eyes,
in the Sauron eye of Google,
and in the pounding of the war drums as the ICBMs are readied.
It is not hard to see.
It is not even hidden.
We hold hands on the precipice and pour YES into the madness,
the majestic, orgasmic, omnicide angel madness.

Come what may.
Come, what may.
Come on, whatever may come.
We beckon forward the inevitable.
We collaborate with the chaos.
We ride as passengers with ancient earthworms and DMT gods
on the back of an infinite sea turtle
holding hands in excitement
for whatever is to come.

I love you so, so much.
I embrace you deep into my feathers
so you can hear the heartbeat of the galaxies.
Whatever happens,
whether we pass the great test or not,
whether we adapt or go extinct,
whether we make the jump or fall,
in the big picture
—the really, really big picture—
it will all be okay.

Let’s smoke cigarettes here on the edge of the abyss
as the air begins to crackle with an alien potentiality
and just gush our love out over everything
while it is there to be loved,
because it is there to be loved,
for however long it lasts,
come what may.

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/holding-hands-on-the-precipice