Fields of knowledge

“There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician.”

Glenn T. Seaborg, chemist, Nobel laureate (1912-1999)

All the wrong places

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
down in the soggy dregs of coffee in my cup
I would try to tilt and turn the little bits
until they might shape into your face
but they dried so I had to give up

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
up in the stars, connecting the dots to each
unsure if Vega was a good start or end
until I ran out of breath and space
as none were within reach

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
into the bubbles of the foam in my bath
I would watch and listen to them pop
until I unsaw the mirrored gaze
and became Sylvia Plath

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
through long nights of browsing Tinder
each ghost had something of you
until you would be effaced
drowned in cinders

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
in between written words and musical notes
through hundreds of songs and poems
until I could no longer retrace
what I'm sure was a quote

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
for you might have passed by in old Polaroids
I even checked VHS tapes and jigsaws
until no left-over puzzle piece
could surely fit the void

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
in footsteps I never heard, in scented eaux
I never smelt, deaf and blind to signs
that you might not ever surface
until I have to let you flow

1+1

I'd love to thrash the idiot who told you
that happiness is a beautiful feeling
that it is as easy as 1+1

I'd love to catch the simpleton who said
that life is simple, just follow the signs
leaving me wondering where I screwed up

how many times have you genuinely said,
stopped mid-breath, I am happy right now
looked around you in awe and contentment

how many times have you actually said
I was happy back then because this instant
I am fucking miserable, and lonely

how many times have you added up
1+1 and thought you had the answer
why unhappy people thought they were happy

what if happiness was a trap laid down
by the most careful of hunters
catching only the unaware ones

what if unhappiness was a trap set
by the most careless of hunters
always catching the questioners

you see, happiness is like being well
you realise only after you get sick
that things weren't so bad after all

unhappiness is like being in a well
you feel the rising water and you stare up
burning your lungs screaming for help

then you finally grasp that 1+1
cannot be as simple as adding them up
that 1+1 is a fucking black hole

in my mind

whoever I have known might have died somehow
whatever I have touched could have withered
whilst I was only trying to feel alive

half my existence has been dreamt
painful day-to-day wish to belong
and to be someone else, and with

somewhere and somewhen else
because I have always been sad
without genuinely seeing why

even though I do understand how
as dusk brings hordes of breathtakes
and dawn its defibrillating gasp

the desire to persist even though
it means anguish, hurt and longing
the imaginedeath of others

living a mess of shifting somethings
ungrasped only in the twilights
images conjured perhaps
real, perhaps,
but all there
all there
in my mind