NitN 43 - Knight of Cups (Amos J Hunt Sings a Grackle’s Staccato Poetry)

Amos J Hunt just casually waltzed into the position of Best Poet I Know with a beautiful, musical, gripping piece about grief that he reads on air and, like the Knight of Cups we drew, I try to hold it together without spilling too much emotion. Beautiful!

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Intro!

From the limited picture I got from the 45 minutes I watched of the most recent season of Love is Blind, I projected myself onto crying, bedraggled Cole pretty hard during the finale’s Reunion.

Despite dark omens and unintentionally hurting someone while talking too much in a reactive, autopilot state, Cole got swept up in the pageantry of a wedding and was willing to believe that love would conquer all. Instead, he got ripped apart in front of his family and friends—and the whole internet. I wasn’t able to find his social media to confirm this but I think it’s safe to assume the bloodthirsty, shame-obsessed public sphere encouraged him to kill himself at least once.

The same way you could say that he was too much of a golden retriever to consent to the full ramifications of trying to find love on reality TV, I am personally too dopey to have truly consented to the full ramifications of adopting an identity based on achievement in this profoundly sick civilization. My identity has been about developing remarkable skills and producing special things. Like hoping for love during the hooplah of a wedding, I have hoped my contributions could help heal the world amidst the hooplah of the ubiquitous myth of the savior.

Like Cole’s foolish belief something, anything, good could come of an exploitative Reality Television machine, I feel foolish to have believed, however briefly and intermittently, that something good could ever happen on the scale denoted by the messianic fantasies I never really consented to adopt.

I cried after watching the reunion episode. It was confusing. I felt, in the moment, that I was mourning the death of my identity. I am questioning whether even my hot-take heroes can do good, given their incentive to identify an in-progress apocalypse through their role as purveyors of hope in the face of doom. So of course, I am questioning whether I can be helpful.

I am no longer able to believe that I am smart, special or capable; I'm just another dopey person who lives most of his life on automatic. I was too stupid to realize what I was consenting to when I allowed people to tell me I was "gifted" and "destined" and I was too myopic to realize that my autopilot behavior would inevitably cause me to be torn to shreds by Zay’s real-world counterpart: this meaningless, dismal, uncaring universe.

My problem is that somehow I “consented” to never being able to internalize that it is a good thing I am simply here, regardless of what I accomplish. I “consented,” in short, to never feeling like enough.

I am ready to revoke that consent.

Enjoy the Show!

Find Amos J Hunt at https://grubstreetgrackle.com and join his Patreon to get yourself copies of his literary journal’s wonderful publications!