8th December, 2015 // 2:49 p.m. // Indian Type Foundry, Ahmedabad

I am Karl Marx - Jen Levitt

In the world there are many people
I don't know most of them
Sometimes the ones I do know say to me
You should style your hair like this
or Why don't you get a drink from that bar over there
I say thank you for the advice
and I may go for a drink at that bar
even though I am tired
from standing in front of teenagers all day
on a chair looking down at them
pretending to be Marx pretending they are the masses
I ask what would I say to you proletarians, if I were Marx
They say capitalism is tyranny! Down with the bourgeoisie!
They are correct so I tell them to rise up
in my best German accent
And with a white beard made of copier
Later I will ride home on the train
at eye level with the gray buildings
And feeling like I sometimes do
Empiricism cannot help me
nor psychoanalysis nor meditation.
It is difficult not knowing how to be in the world
which is different than not knowing
who you are, but close.