Good Thing I Don't Believe in Hell

Illicit Booty
Originally uploaded by kafkas_undies.

For if I did, I'd surely have a front row seat on the bus ride down. Last Thursday confirmed my reservation. It was part one of my three-part end of semester joyride. This was the part where a room full of geniuses prone to mispronouncing cognizant and blurting out racial slurs had co-opted a literature class and turned it into a carousel ride of cultural embarrassment and intellectual degradation. On the last day of this spectacle, we were given the option of participating in a poetry reading. The stakes were high: gold stars and lollipops and check plus-pluses dangled like soggy carrots.

One of the geniuses prefaced her original one-of-a-kind-and-thank-fucking god-for-that composition by announcing "I wrote this for my grandfather's funeral. This is only the second time I've read it." It was like she'd strung her bow with Siberian horse hair and then decided to play pizzicato on my heart strings. Someone get me a valium. Or better yet, some depacote, xanax, and a shotgun. And this was just the beginning. She proceeded to incorporate words like "nana" and "missing you" into the recitation. She even mentioned her family pets by name. Aaawwww, how sweet. So sweet, in fact, it made me throw up the dinner I'd not yet had.

And then came the best part. First, though, let me mention that this poem was written in the AABB rhyming schemata. Cat, fat, fine, line. No joke. Lucky grandpa. Death didn't spare us, though. No, no, we were privy to an AV-presentation - sans digital preproduction efforts. It was a display nothing short of the brilliance inherent to choppy recitation, dramatic intakes of air, tear-stained cheeks, and the most innovative use of words this side of literacy.

The best slash worst part came when the poet laureate rhymed "sad" with "glad." It was then I thought, "Too bad life and death don't rhyme." And it was then I motionlessly performed a wiping of forehead maneuver signifying relief that things like heaven and hell mean as much to me as unicorns and the tooth fairy. But in case I'm wrong, want to sit next to me on the bus ride down?