Piecing together a story with timestamps
from letters you published, and
clues raining down like hammers,
(which is to say, at first dangerous, and then
amnesia-inducing, leaving me certain
I was delirious all along)

you asked me “what kind of person are you?”
and I hesitantly shrugged,
“whatever kind you need me to be, if only
I can.” If only
I can.

I can be a mirror,
a reflection,
a deflection,
a misdirection,
an inter-introspection
asking only what has already
been asked before, rapid-fire
and firing faster, until it shatters
like
“what kind of person are you?”
and
“what do you see when you look at me?”
and
"how can you see what's looking at you,
if you didn't first know to look to see?”
and
"what if we run out of things to say
or questions to ask?”
and
“how many bites does it take
to get to the centre of a person?”
and
"if I promise there's no venom in my fangs
could I bite into you?”
and
I wonder what you taste like.

In a dystopian future where mosquitos have been all but eradicated, manual injections of anti-coagulants are a luxury in which the rich partake. Demand is high and access is highly restricted. On the surface, this is justified through religious ideologies, but at its core it is driven by class discrimination; it is a way for the wealthy to give yet another hearty ****-you to the poor.

As often happens in the case of substances which are both in demand and restricted, a thriving illegal drug trade has emerged. Low-quality anti-coagulants trickle down to the poor, but are, of course, subject to higher sentencing, for the safety of those taking them.

People share needles. Facilities for safe-injections exist, but mostly people prefer to attend ‘injection ******' where they literally scratch each other’s backs.

He worships at the shrine of capitalism
prays for a better fiscal quarter
with money spent in shopping malls,
a scrambling search for off-the-rack meaning
through blessèd, holy consumerism.
He gives thanks to this, our daily microwave meal,
while he mutters under his breath,
“What be the will of these, our stock-market Algorithms?"

He listens to sermons from business and econ profs preaching
from the higher-education steeples, teaching
students gathering like stampede sheeples, reaching
for a measure of worth in semester-long bursts
a silent choir scribbling in exam halls to petty praise,
leaving them burned out,
and crying on the bathroom floor,
lights out, itching for a wink
amidst insect hallucinations
adrenaline rushed
from Dexadrine or Adderall
dissociation flushed
from ketamine or alcohol
asking,
“What is wrong with me?”

Seeking answers,
he pays weekly penance to shrinks
a confessional of mental disorders from the Gospel of DSM:

“Forgive me, Doctor, for I have sinned.
It has been seven days since my last confession.
I’m obsessive, I’m depressive,
antisocial personality,
ADD or ADHD,
I’m poor as I ever was and ever will be,
I’m no service to society,
I'm squandered in sobriety,
but please
keep my hands tied
in these shackles of student debt!”

And his only act of contrition
is a medical prescription
made sweeter to swallow at communion
than the blood and body of Christ.

Welcome, the new order!
Welcome, the New Religion (TM)!

Pray it will be a better one
than what we left behind.

When we tumbled out into the spring, free at last from our winter entrapment, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. All winter they’d concocted strange notions about the candle, in desperate hopes of making it warmer. Huddling about the ember hand in hand, a religion was born. And it was a miracle, yes, that it had lasted the whole winter, but...

“We didn’t survive because of a pithy candle,” the words burst out dry and impatient, “we survived because we huddled together. Who was I, then, to start an argument? It would have been the death of us all! Better to be alive than to be right, I reckon.”