A new poem comic by artist Tara Black.
We are all collective nouns of ourselves
Text version:
We are all collective nouns of ourselves
Inclined to backseat drive
our model self
No one is in the front
We all got in the back
The self is a crowded Volkswagen
Like a clown joke
The punchline is
sadness
The horror of finding clowns in the
backseat of the self
…is that clowns
navigate by the moon in the day and the sun by night
…is that clowns don’t wear seatbelts
They’re loose back there.
In an accident they’ll come out of your face
The horror of finding clowns in the backseat of the self
…is that a singular self is a joke
…is that you are the clowns
…is that the clowns think they’re you
but they don’t know you’re real
They think you’re a simulation designed to build institutional confidence in clowns
We are the phantom limbs of clowns
They are used to clothes that do not fit
No one wants to find clowns
in the backseat of themself
because there are clowns
piloting clowns
in the backseats of their selves
Lean over to the person next to you and say, ‘WE BOTH SEE WITH CLOWNS’
Accept the consequences as a meeting of minds
The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed and will open again later this year.