Student Literary Contest Winner: Alex Barry

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.