me n u clear
oppenheimer
built the end of the world
initially to save the jews but when he lit the
fuse he knew the end of the world can never equal
salvation. there are only two options so you and i choose
fission over fusion for selfish use because we’re so afraid to lose
the war. so we split and the reactor blew and i wonder if
oppenheimer really knew that to build
a bomb means
to destroy the view.
it’s funny ‘cause
i bet he knew
right up until
the mushroom
flew up and then
he had to learn
anew that a bomb
is only a bomb
if it goes off,
and you and me
lived blissfully inside the end of the world
right up until the plutonium—
obituary
you drizzled poison over your tea like it was
honey and sipped the mug, your throat a desert.
and bees can’t kindle a dead thing you told yourself
you were cautious but the liquor still
stung your liver and i sat
and watched.
i sat and watched and told you how iridescent you were welcoming hell like it was the womb you sprung from like you’re glad it spat you out but to return by accident would not be an accident at all, and what is hindsight but the knowledge that i wasn’t actually watching you do the drinking i was the bee following that honey down into your gut because i wanted to be so deep inside you that you couldn’t wash me out.
i never meant
to be your undoing
but what is love if not
seeing each other
to the grave?
nomads
the bus enters the village, steady but confused,
always, the route is the same, and the people too.
what is home but the land we travel through the same route long enough to create rivers?
the mall here, the city hall and the church,
the football fields, and the car shop where i worked.
i look out of the bus window, all these faces i know
but death creeps up fast, and the village moves slow.
the sky closes solemnly, granting water
the houses reject it, the pavement flooding.
they are talking about tearing down the school where i lost my virginity,
where i learned that all habits die kicking and screaming,
where my tears were first banned from entering the world.
i hate that building, with its low wooden beams, hunching gloomily
like a monster waiting in shadows to lunge.
when the boys and girls alike decided to stand against me only
instead of each other, i braved its walls,
the rain pipe my stairs, the roof my stronghold.
enemies yelled for me to come down cowardly,
but i was the knight who had weathered the siege.
come and get me.
when easy doesn’t do it, brute force will have to do.
they are talking about tearing down my castle,
the rooms where i fought for my right to exist.
what is home but the walls that bred enough evil
to undo the sweetness of its own kiss?
the roads have been altered. new buildings pulled out of the earth.
the house where i learned to swim was demolished and later rebuilt.
what remains of the rubble?
if i search, will I still find shards of my shame between the rocks?
invisible scars, hurt double.
bus line 1 is out of order.
the italian restaurant changed names.
the family i robbed no longer lives under one roof,
their flowers plucked and reseeded in some other place.
when i walk these streets, the tarmac reeks of guilt.
my own? who knows. maybe a common wound grows.
(it is why i had to leave)
the bushes where i had my first kiss, only to step in dogshit right after.
the path where mamma walked me to school, and i said i faked all my laughter.
(i am losing my mind, losing my rhyme, recalling this time)
the football fields where i learned exclusion can be based only on what is in between your legs.
where i heard them laughing at my bare ass, and sometimes, i swear, i can hear them laughing still.
i am rageful and aggressive. i climb trees and throw rocks at their heads. i take the backpack that wasn’t mine and run circles around this asylum until they have me cornered. i slip away unnoticed, 6 years old and running away– they’re on my tail so i make my way to grandma’s place.
what is home but the first place you lose your dignity?
mamma, mamma, i’m so sorry
you have got a thief for a daughter
a little girl who wants to be a boy
a child with the anger of a bull.
i never stopped to consider the damage my grenades could do.
i wanted to hurt them. i wanted them in pain.
the eyes that lose tears always differ from my aim.
never the same, never the same,
how can i ever be the same?
(it is why i left. it is why home will never be home again.
the village birthed me and spat me out, like a lioness rejecting a cub, and so i fled to the city, because i heard everyone is welcome here. if not for who we are then for our use. the periphery of society is so perfectly created for exploitation.)
at the end of the weekend, the bus leaves the village the same way it came,
the window wipers try to stop its weeping, wailing, crying in vain.
everything i lost here, i bury deep in this place.
(next week i will mourn it again)
what is home but the theatre in which you tried on all the people you have been?
what is home but the only prison you always leave with a sting?
what is home if not the inside of your first coffin?