i’ve long dreamt
of black flags in the streets
tonight i marched beneath
the shadow of their wings

shoulder-to-shoulder
in hope and solidarity
an anarchist professor
with a climate change activist
an independent journalist
and one of my students

as mid-November winds tugged
at her pink-and-brunette hair
she lifted a hand-drawn sign
of a gigantic sneaker
smashing a ****
and i felt
for not the first time
an enormous sense of pride

how humbling to at once
inspire and be inspired by
an eighteen-year-old
punk and artist
who asked to borrow
The Moral Imperative of Revolt
two scant months ago
then took to the streets
to oppose and depose
a twisted fascist virtuoso

for two whole hours
we hundreds owned the streets
we marched down Rosalind
Central and Orange Avenue
as protest slogans rang angelic
we raised hell and found heaven
in liberty equality and solidarity

but then the pigs closed in
cordoned to Lake Eola
to scream acquiescent rhetoric
at the fish sleeping
blissful in their innocence
beneath the jet black surface

a half-dozen cops in riot gear
astride horses loomed
ominous before us
backlit by the headlights
of the aggravated motorists
our march had forestalled

as the people abandoned the streets
we’d won so easily
i felt my chest wilt beneath
the weight of forsaken opportunity
my eyes scanned the remaining crowd

four stood strong
rooted to the concrete
by the world's weight
anchored by conviction
an anarchist professor
an independent journalist
a climate change activist
and a freshman college student

i heard the professor whisper to his student
i heard him say she'd put herself in harm’s way
that they'd lost the day when the marchers
turned their backs and walked away
but she didn’t flinch or move an inch
she stood silent and vigilant
shoulder-to-shoulder
chin held almost as high
as her ****-smashing protest sign
and her matching *******

and in that moment
i could’ve died
smiling

He thought she would stay
but she was smoke
dancing from his cigarette
entangling herself in his lungs
he could not hold her
she left swiftly and softly
flitting away through his exhale

Yesterday I was told that I was air
inventive and cool to the touch
offering oxygen and ideas to breathless souls

All I was to you was sea sewage
forcing you to hold stale breath
gripping onto other
floating debris lovers

And I was a shark circling
waiting for the moment
your weak grip slipped
the last of dry flesh would sink under currant
and there I was reaching for your perfectly
rainbow arched feet

I pulled you deeper and deeper until
finally I let you slip back into a world
where gravity was your enemy
and I, left alone as a sea monster
for ***** divers to gape at

And here I am sifting through the sand
trying to find purpose for our salty memories
Do I bury them and hope they convert into nourishment for the
algae?
do I let them float to the surface and offer light to your pirate pals?
Do I string them like pearls and adorn the humpbacks?
I could stuff them into the fisherman's cages and
let them surface back up to you
to **** from crab claws

But alas, captain

Until I find a purpose for all of our ****** up
suffocating memories

I'll scoff at being labeld "air"
and harbor those haunting pieces of you
like the mossy skulls I lay with
at the bottom of this dark ocean