Purity Test
a new poem
Purity Test
Do you think of yourself
as a miserable person?
Would you say you enjoy life?
Do you have sex?
Do you attend parties, dinners
or places outside of your residence?
Have you ever changed your mind
about anything or said something
you regret on the internet?
Are you interested in change?
Are you ruled by cultural opinion?
Would you say you’re afraid to rule yourself
as a result of something you lack?
What is the purpose of forgiveness?
Do you believe in power only if it favors you?
Is there a difference between
policing speech and policing sex?
Why are you taking this test
or reading this poem?
Are you turned on or off
by how didactic it is?
Do you recognize its dogmatic
approach elsewhere?
Would you say the first
cancelled celebrity was Jesus?
Why or why not?
What is the purpose of history?
Should history be taught
even if we hate what happened there?
Staying on the topic of history,
is there a difference between
the anti-art theatrics
of the religious right in the 1990s
and the often sanctimonious
American left today?
Why or why not?
Would you say you’re
ready to return to pleasure?
Do you sometimes resent
what you couldn’t become?
Who has hurt you the most in life?
Have you ever thought about
liberation without punishment?
When you punish yourself,
do you want others to suffer as well?
Just needed to share a serendipitous reading moment as I opened a Henry Miller book right after reading this and read: “Are you certain that the earth revolves around the sun? Can you define motion? Can you answer that the composition of a distant planet is such and such? Are you even sure that the sun is a ball of fire? The men from whom you get your answers are not so cocksure. There are no absolutes any more. There is theory and there is speculation. And experimentation. All kinds of proofs, too. Proofs! How we love that word!”
This. Poem. 👏🏽