Poem: Call

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The issues – and there are many –

start like this:

The universe is a fishbowl

in a science classroom full

of high school freshmen.

Eyes that we do not understand to be eyes

gaze in at us

curious and unflinching –

each space between a blink lasting a millennia.

When they look in

all they see are glass girls in glass cages

pirouetting prettily

wrapped in the dreams

that a spider’s silk leaves behind.

They see candlewax tears

dripping down dark,

bloodstained faces leaving tracks

like breadcrumbs behind to find

their way home

permanently. Like the 

injustices that bore them from their loins

they will not dissolve.

There is no maple sugar here

to soothe tired taste buds –

just contradictions 

folded inside other contradictions.

Myths that are lietruthlie

that floating boys swallow down

in shot glasses as soon as

their feet touch land again.

Deploy is a dirty word.

Here we all are, part of one great big atom bomb

waiting to be detonated.

We’d leave, but the earth has married us,

and our wedding rings are shackles

keeping us prisoners

under the guise of being in love

with the way we move against her

when we fuck

or how our eyes sparkle in the sunlight, or how

our voices can be so small in the middle of the night.

They see our struggle.

Watch us strain against handcuffs and handguns

fighting wars amongst ourselves

for one reason, and one reason only:


The universe makes a lot of noise

to prove to itself that it really exists.

Outside of the fishbowl

they’ve learned to put their

heartbeats on pause

and hush the rustling language of air

through their lungs and 

they think that we should call them gods for this.

They are sepia flavored photographs

letting immortality render

their alveoli stiff and

they think we should call them gods for this.

The only prayers I will say

belong to drag racers

speeding down 88 miles of bookshelf

in the New York Public Library.

I’m a glutton for some goddamn 

punishment.

I’ve got a snakeskin heart

and with every beat it sheds.

The skins of past lovers lay littered

around the whale bone floor of my closet and

they should call me a god for this.