{i remember}

She comes to presence
in a great wave of grief
that has no bottom.

{water cannot swim}

Feeling the unbearable
weight of womanhood
tearing me open,
revealing my own sorrows.

{a channel of life}*

To be a gate of love and blood,
the flesh of desire,
bearer of all burdens,

was so traumatic I was reborn
in the body of a man.

my reflection, anatomical inaccuracy reads something like:

fairy dust in a silt layer, bones all shattered at the press of her fingers, and for months I molded a sandcastle around the soft

sinking, drinking ichor from a cocktail glass and dragging nails across my discomfort -

did you see that girl taking a tempest inside herself, to warp her sinew, spreading from this side of the universe to other?

in the lamplight I bit a secret onto the ridge of her spine; *sometimes I sleep near fires hoping my insides become glass

i was raised
by the greatest
generation.
at least,
that's what we
were told.

we were raised
at your knee,
told stories
of the American
Dream. "work hard,"
you told us, "obey,
consume, and god
will provide
for your every need."

you neglected
to mention
you'd borrowed
our only home,
a loan
you've since
squandered.

like the parable
of old,
you buried
your talent
in the sand—
along with your head.
dormant, you twiddled
your thumbs,
ignored the warning
signs of sky-rocketing
carbon emissions.

when you die
alone
you'll leave
behind a footprint
larger than your
tiny mind
could fathom.
it will echo
in the hallways
of your vacant,
dilapidated mansions.

you stood upon
the shoulders
of gods and giants,
but you gave us
a globe
unbalanced,
off-axis.

now, like Atlas,
we're left to carry
your burdens.
this yoke is heavy
and we are slight.

there's
no future
now, thanks
to you.
only prophecies
of nuclear holocaust,
economic collapse,
and the inevitable
heat-death
of the universe.