enten / eller
after søren kierkegaard
i’m thinking about biography, about mortality. how repetition is the opposite of pleasure, how some rules are made to be broken. you think it an accident, but life is not neutral. i tell you this once and you hear it twice, my echo splicing through the silence. you’re a pawn at a crossroads, the world black and white, pleading for you to choose between the ethical or the aesthetic. we both know your pick. the acorn wants to be an oak, and you want to be free, but you’ve lost sight of your self and you have no faith. here it all hangs in suspension, how life is finite and absurd, forgiveness is transcendental, and everything, an illusion of choice.
Natalye Childress (she/her) is a Berlin-based editor, writer, translator, and sad punk. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears or is forthcoming in Querencia Press, Frozen Sea, Silly Goose Press, wildness, and elsewhere. She has an MA in creative writing, and her first book, The Aftermath of Forever, was published by Microcosm Publishing.
