Emerging from this makeshift shelter,
I look about at the wicked cold day,
Wondering how long I will survive in this bleak world.

I have tussled with my demons,
Made peace with myself,
And accepted my lot in life.

My ragged clothing, barely covering me,
Warmth only a dream,
Decent food a luxury,
Knowing my family as I am now,
An impossibility.

The shrill jeering of children as I pass by,
The looks from strangers,
Judging me in my degradation.
None realizing that I was once They.

I could justify feeling superior,
When I had a home, a family, a job.
A sense of security and a mind and body unbroken.

And now, watching from the other side,
I wonder why I had so little compassion,
So litte empathy, so little mercy.
Just as They do now.

when i was ripe. when i was ripe. under your wing.
thirteen and this jacket's too **** big.
the feathers of your wing tickle my childbearing hips.
is it sin because i like it?
or because i cannot bear child?

only in my mind did i birth one.
we called her a name i can't remember.
she was in my care for a week.
and we watched sitcoms and ate macaroni and cheese in little blue bowls.
i wasn't there when she left.

but my childbearing hips were. 

oh. will you make me a bird too?
will you make me a bird too? 


it kind of makes me sick, in the stomach and ovaries.
when you don't look at me while you fly.
you just look down. at my childbearing hips.
that's all.

i just wanted to know if you got your fingers ***** when you tore your baby out of me.

In thousands and thousands of years,
our successors, who or whatever they are,
won’t just find our bones.
They’re going to find our living rooms,
our I-pods, coffee mugs,
suitcases, post-it notes.
The quiet little things that become our lives,

and they’ll look at each other, our successors,
and they’ll think: ‘how charming…how primitive they lived.
This is what they wore on their feet,
and this is the thing they used to listen to music
with before they had the microchips implanted.”
But it makes me think.
This is exactly what we say now
…about the Greeks, the Mesopotamians,
the Incas, Mayas,
all the ****-cloth wearers.

We talk about them
like they were exempt
from unremarkable daily existences,
that their run-of-the mill equivalences’ to Tuesdays
were filled with human sacrifices,
complex rituals and **** like that.
We never talk about how they must have felt exactly like we do now…
We never talk about how they could have easily felt alone in a crowd,
or how they could have felt unrequited love.

They’re always talked about like they were better or worse than we are.
But I think we’re really just exactly the same as them.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.