What is this link? / A poem to get us started

I already made a blog, so why have this other blog? Well, this is a place to record and share some of my various creative writing endeavors, if for no other reason than to simply help myself keep track and keep writing. Any comments are appreciated, and I hope some of what I write ends up benefitting some people, but no promises…

That said, I do really enjoy this poem I wrote recently. It’s a bit unpolished, but I like the concept and I think it’s a fun one to share. Also works out since I never gave it a title… here it is:

Today I met a man who was quite convinced he didn’t exist

He seemed calm enough

But seeing an existential crisis of such proportion prompted me to lend some advice

I told him to remember Descartes

And he nodded, smiled, told me he’d never met the man

Which wasn’t quite what I meant, but he was a hard one to argue with

Existence, I said, is the only thing we can be assured of

Ah, he raised a finger in a cartoonish manner,

But “we” are sure of nothing, it is “you” who have this assurance

I supposed he was correct, in a sense, but this still troubled me

I felt he was beginning to drag me down with him

But, I protested, surely you are something,

Otherwise what are we referring to, or what is conversing with me

You may not be the sort of being I perceive you to be

But that hardly means you don’t exist

On the contrary, he said, raising a finger on his other hand in a similar manner

If I didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be able to tell

I raised an eyebrow, or at least attempted to

You see, he continued, all you perceive filters through your own mind

And what you perceive as me may not be the me that claims not to exist

Thus, if you cannot even identify the object of the argument

How can you reliably contribute to this argument in the first place

The logic, I knew, was flawed on several levels

And yet I struggled to counter it, as it seemed that saying more would somehow strengthen his point

After all, the man continued,

I’m not claiming that you do not exist, I’m simply claiming I do not,

I don’t see why that should bother you so much.

He lowered both hands and nodded his head as if this were the end of it and he were going to walk away

But he didn’t, he just stayed there, remaining, existing, one might say

I suppose I should have been indifferent, but something from his argument seemed to undermine my way of walking about life

And I simply couldn’t stand for that

I looked at the crooked smile on his face and suddenly I recognized the expression

And I knew the face

I slowly turned around, away from the mirror, and walked away.