A Beat Poet Visits IKEA

I saw the best minds of my generation

wandering through Scandinavian minimalism,

hungry for meaning and reasonably priced shelving—

dragging their souls past escalators that hummed like fluorescent mantras,

into the great blue-and-yellow cathedral of particleboard salvation,

where arrows on the floor dictated destiny

more strictly than any god I had previously ignored.

I followed them—

past couches with names like SÖDERHAMN

(which sounded less like furniture

and more like a fjord where my father’s expectations drowned),

past lamps that whispered, You are not enlightened,

but you could be, for $19.99 and a hex key.

O IKEA!

You vast democratic warehouse of longing!

You promise of order in a life composed entirely of loose screws

and leftover emotional hardware!

I took a number—

as if waiting for deli meat or redemption—

and sat beside a man named Craig

who had been trying to locate “Aisle 17, Bin B”

his face a landscape of desperation

We nodded at each other

like monks who had taken vows of belatenhet

Upstairs, the bedrooms were staged like lies—

perfect duvets, immaculate nightstands,

a life where no one has ever wept into a fitted sheet

or Googled “what is my purpose” at 2:13 a.m.

I lay down briefly

on a display mattress named MALM

and saw my entire life flash before me

in clean, neutral tones.

A woman in a yellow shirt—

high priestess of Allen wrenches—

approached and said,

“Sir, this is not for sleeping.”

And I said,

“Neither is existence, but here we are.”

Downstairs—

into the marketplace of smaller dreams—

candles, rugs, bowls,

each one a tiny, purchasable attempt

to make the void feel curated.

I bought a nightstand.

Of course I bought a nightstand.

What else is there to do

when confronted with the infinite

but select “birch veneer”

and pretend that’s a choice?

Also, I only had about $30

And the nightstand

Was languishing in the "as is" section

Like an orphaned puppy

Back home—

in the dim-lit apartment of my ongoing unraveling—

I opened the box.

Wordless instructions.

Diagrams of madness.

A man smiling

as he effortlessly assembled himself.

A lie perpetrated by

masculine over-confidence.

I spread the pieces across the floor

like tarot cards of delayed comprehension.

Board A

did not trust Screw B.

Peg C

refused to commit.

The Allen wrench—

that tiny metallic guru—

spoke in angles I could not understand.

I turned it.

I stripped it.

I questioned my upbringing.

Hours passed.

Night fell.

Civilizations rose and collapsed

somewhere between Step 3 and Step 4.

And still

the nightstand remained

a philosophical suggestion.

I screamed into the quiet,

Scandinavian abyss.

O IKEA!

You assembler of flat-pack illusions!

You architect of existential delay!

You have shown me

that life is not a finished product!

it is a box of parts

missing one crucial screw

that no one will admit ever existed.

And somewhere,

in a showroom bedroom

displaying an altar to rest

a man lies down

on a mattress he cannot afford

and dreams

of instructions

that make sense.