It’s Kinda Sad What Makes Me Laugh

While I’m getting stoned, I imagine life

without random objects, like blue, then ask myself impossible questions, e.g.:

Were there no blue, what might we call bluejays?

Would they find themselves wearing a bespoke suit of magenta feathers?

Would bleached cotton clouds litter burnt umber skies over blood orange oceans?

Would we have any use for the word?

Might we spit it out, as one would a rotten tooth?

Knife its belly, as one would a mahi-mahi?

Crush its jaw, as one would a worst enemy?

Would I mourn the sight of blue though I loath the sound of it?

Would I love to hear it die? Would I be wrong to say yes?

Could there be any inherent good in this destruction?

There’d be one fewer word for depression.

So would I finally be okay one day? I laugh till I choke.

Raphael prefers to go by Ralph, as he feels it suits him better and he’s heard every Ninja Turtle joke ever uttered. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Kentucky with his Boo-thang and their four-year-old boy. He is a chef by day and an essayist, poet, screenwriter in his dreams. He, like Issa Rae, is rooting for everybody Black. His work has been featured on his mama’s fridge, his close friends’ inboxes, and Hobart; forthcoming in 3 Elements Review, Frontier Poetry and Flypaper Lit. Follow him on twitter: @RALPHEEBOI