I claim a hyphenated existence that does not belong to me

this is panic:

your heart forgets how to beat,
every muscle in your body tenses, sets a good example
your throat closes so your foolish heart can't escape --

you know you're not lucky enough to die like this, but you still hope it'll be over soon.

five years later and you think you should understand by now --
wait. did you think there was an answer? did you think this staccato heart of yours, these sweaty palms, actually meant something?

you must be new here.
*kid, they're gonna eat you alive in the Real World.

i like to think that there
're always people
who make wishes twice a day
no matter how old they
get, you told
me and
through the slurs for the first
time i heard you
hope

furious aesthetic and empty grace
like broken glass, like shattered inertia

holy roman emperors born and raised
in missouri gunned down, target practice

furious grace and empty aesthetic
like tear gas canisters, like shattered bone

hidden by roses laid down the highway
now ashen, red from embers, red from blood

the furious world watches empty screens
there is no aesthetic, no grace, in ******

the bus is a slow
revolving door and i am
its penultimate

i wonder if you took
all the untitled poems and laid
them out
end to end
how many times they
would span the globe and how
many hearts
could finally rest

you are not stardust
and you are not iron
you are not an element on the periodic
table and you are not
a being crafted for perfection

you are blood and flesh you
are skin and bone you are
all of these clichés and far
more but you are nothing besides
what you make yourself

not forged from iron not hardened
by fire but wonderfully fallible and beautifully
human