"Forty-One Things That God Invented"

New Poetry from The Metropolitan Review

The Bedroom, Vincent Van Gogh. Photo: Getty Images

1. God invented strawberry [sic]
2. God invented the lie I told my grandpa right before he died
3. God invented the letter ‘m’
4. God invented my bed sheets being dotted with weird yellow crust that never sleeps and slowly appears wherever it pleases
5. God invented static electricity
6. God invented marrow to fill up my otherwise empty bones
7. God invented slaps to the face
8. God invented the unidentifiable white linty pill I swallowed that I found under the rug I hadn’t cleaned in four years that my mom’s friend whose name I forgot had given to me as a gift I begrudgingly accepted because she was moving to a new apartment after she lost her job and didn’t want to throw it out
9. God invented Norrbotten County, Sweden
10. God invented my triumphant achievement that everyone else either didn’t notice or doesn’t remember
11. God invented logic
12. God invented the lone beer all the way in the back of my fridge’s top shelf that I keep as a reminder to myself that I “don’t really drink anymore”
13. God invented Tic-Tac-Toe (also called Noughts and Crosses)
14. God invented swearing in foreign languages I don’t understand but pretend to
15. God invented rhombuses
16. God invented the moment when I found out that my best friend who didn’t actually like me had transferred to a different middle school
17. God invented 1946
18. God invented the sound of me sloppily chewing and swallowing cheddar and sour cream flavored potato chips while posting about it on social media
19. God invented motionlessness
20. God invented me marrying the love of my life and then took it back after deciding it was a bad idea
21. God invented chocolate
22. God invented you listening to me singing the wrong words to a song that I’m making up as I go along
23. God invented doorknobs
24. God invented lawless tech billionaires so that nobody in my condominium will run out of laundry detergent ever
25. God invented ugly hats
26. God invented my dog who isn’t real
27. God invented eggshell blue
28. God invented my six-year-old self becoming so terrified of a particular shoreline roller coaster that when I would return two dozen years later I would clench each of my muscles as tightly as possible holding my breath and trying to scream so hard all at the same time so that my brain might drive an impenetrable mental wedge between my senses and the world around me and hopefully knock me semi-conscious onto my ass where I would remain in a heap burning badly atop a scratchy beach blanket beneath the destructive rays of the July sun for the rest of the morning and three-quarters of the afternoon
29. God invented metal sulfide ore, in which selenium partially replaces the sulfur
30. God invented my bathroom
31. God invented onomatopoeia
32. God invented the woman whom I would see on the subway platform every so often on my way to work who leaped in front of a moving train while I was standing nearby trying to lick my elbow
33. God invented sea foam
34. God invented bumps so that things don’t have to be so damn smooth all the time if I don’t want them to be
35. God invented trust
36. God invented me over the course of 13.772 billion years
37. God invented the Id
38. God invented my mind’s capacity to tirelessly and regularly generate indelible nightmares but he didn’t invent the nightmares
39. God invented the planet Jupiter
40. God invented me getting everything I ever wanted just to watch me realize that none of it was bringing me any closer to happiness
41. God invented vanilla

Ben Bar is a New York City-raised project manager, personal trainer, singer-songwriter, and chessboxer living in Bushwick, Brooklyn.