(no subject)

[apiphile]

July

head between my knees
fighting off the pain
of the grey throbbing sky;
difficult to live in the moment
worse to be a soothsayer.
it's not just the future
whatever comes there will still have been
and there has been
so very much.
this will pass, you tell yourself:
this will--fucking hurry up--
this gouge in the face of decency,
these unceasing outstretched hands
the sound of children dying by the million
over real estate opportunities,
oil, portfolio value, and
fifty white men's swollen prostates
afflicting them with the reality
of their mortality,
this will pass.
in the blink of an eye you go
from bright young thing
to never-has-been; body grinds
fitfully to an idling halt,
while the thoughts go racing on.
today some of the richest people planetwide
are determined that i can't piss in peace;
here or anywhere.
outside my window a small child
asks to see my sewing machine;
two teenage crows demand food
they can easily forage for themselves;
wind shakes the birch leaves.
today sahar and issam and faraah and anas and abdallah
all need money to feed their families
and today the man who runs my country
wants delivery riders beaten in the streets
and today a red and black butterfly the size of my thumb
flickered his wings lazily upon the sun-warmed wood,
and this will pass, it will pass,
but
when will it take me with it?
every time i've gone under knife
i've thought
maybe this time, death?
and that former gerontophile has smiled
and gone back
to stealing children.