It’s not what it looks like.  It’s never what it looks like. 
                                               It’s all wrong
                                                                ­          somewhere.  

Out in the Ukrainian backwoods, Chernobyl looks
like a ghost town some thirty years later.  Intact but
abandoned, vacant—hemorrhaged of humanity.  Like in mass
everyone left the city to buy some milk and never returned.  
Life in the standstill.  Lights left on now burnt out.  Meat
thawing on the counter now mold on the counter.  Laundry
half folded on the bed.  The bath water
ran and ran and ran until the well dried up.  

You wouldn’t know that the soil and
                                                                    the cats and
                                                  the dogs  
                were radioactive
unless you held a meter against it to measure the roentgen.

The hermit crab soft underneath its hard shell.
The mold growing around the core of the shining red apple.  
The asbestos hiding in the insulation.  
The lead in the paint on the crib.  

Sometimes, the things that look the most fine can **** you.

Fingers dipped in purple powders
Fushia gold my makeup
Black skintight latex suit with neon circles
How my outfit is made up

Three rings around my waist
Intersecting, two vertical, one on the horizon
The circles glow with noble gases
Radioactive, after all, I'm an alien

Perfect spheres and concentric rings
Are trending, so I have read
I balance on stacked circles, my six inch latex heels
And floating circles surround the pair of buns on my head

My bones poke through my latex,
Anorexia won't stop my passions
I may not be the body type you want, but I'm the body type you have
And I still enjoy the fashions

My chemical imbalances
Make me unstable
Releasing pieces of my mind
So I'll become stable
Still calculating the halflife
Of my sanity
Alpha, beta or gammma,
Would not catorize me

I am radioactive,
everyone close,
gets hurt, or dies.
I am radioactive,
my confidence is decaying,
and my spirit is dead.
I am radioactive,
my emotions are on a rampage,
and my love has fled.
I am radioactive,
every aspect of my life,
turns into a battle field.
and I, I am radioactive,
I explode,
leaving no trace of life,
or love left.
I am radioactive,
every breath I take,
is taken from someone else.
I am radioactive,
the waves of my danger,
reverberate through people's souls.
Because I am radioactive.