Conclusions

(a poem)

God gave humans a brain each:

an awkward noodly mass you could almost cup

with two palms — a gray-purple slime of sorts

It has folds: surface area for connections

upon connections upon connections

Conclusions are pasted on the insides such as:

1. Birthday cake candles are waxy and bright pink.

2. Balloons and birthday cards and paper cups: also bright.

3. The world must be bright for me.

I have accumulated many conclusions

about the light in candles and the wax they are made of,

and lots and lots and lots of things about pink —

conclusions that have been painted by synaptic

brushes — a palimpsest of personhood

I don't know anymore

that the world is bright for me, but I know

my life is worthy of the space it takes,

and the painful etchings on my mind from

my anxious self that have insisted otherwise

have been out-logicked and outdone.