Student Literary Contest Winner: Alex Barry
A.M.B.rosia
I’m a God among men
I’m a man among Gods
Romanticize my problems as impossible odds
I ought not to be forgotten
Pick my brain like Akhenaton
Drowning deep in sweet ambrosia, lying in ironic coffins
I prescribe your own medicine like a hostile apothecary
Dig my grave in the cemetery where apostles are buried
Hypothesize about the lives we lead
Bleed fire and cry ice from our eyes in sheets
I’m an amalgamation
Of the valor and values
Of a thousand nations, so
If you ask what my race is
I’ll say black and white and brown and Asian
Cuban British Russian Haitian
Jewish Christian Muslim Pagan
Thor and Zeus and God and Satan
Cousins on the pavement taking funeral donations
They couldn’t pay to bury the baby they were raising
They caught my eye when I was driving and I haven’t been the same since
Only twenties in my wallet, I was too cheap and never gave it
I don’t know how that baby died, I just know I drove away with
My money and a heart so broke ambrosia couldn’t save it
And that’s the gods’ elixir, the mythical fixer-upper
Difficult to fix a rubber when it ruptures and another
Immortal soul
Is poured in the mold
And my body will grow old
But my soul will remain evergreen
The most hopeful that they’ve ever seen
Even if I’m a ghost and my blood runs cold
So I’ll mend my soul myself, although my soul’s been torn apart,
Because I can’t love anyone if I’m always waiting for ambrosia to heal my heart.
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