In diminishing returns
They flutter out like little fish into my net
As if catching pierogis into cold water as they get blanched
For less and less
money
Thinking upon what it means to be labeled millennial.
In the spaces where I can’t afford medical care
And these pierogis sell for four dollars apiece
I’ve never eaten one before I came east.
And they look upon me as though I am foreign
And I think about the colors of live oceanic fish as they
are pulled from the sea
Shimmering in the pacific sunlight before they die
And in that ocean is a world that is dying
Pulled from the dimensions that it knew
As we are mutually caught in the undertow to its suffering.
How deeply I wish to unravel the ills of our forbearers
And still we are caught in the web of their structure
Bound to the dragnet of their actions
Folded into a thing beyond agreement
To dream of living an arborescent life
& awaken upon world
of cars and stone
Thinking only of the places where I cannot find peace
a bit like knuckles slipping into a grater
the feeling of amateurity stinging more than pain
as the rivers and factories pass beneath the tracks
Feeling further from home
As a child that has forgotten their gloves
the biting snow greets like catharsis
There in the shrieking where we balk at each other like
ravens
behind human masks until we are breaking
where we consume as a thin parchment between realms of
understanding
in the moments where chemical salts are used enhance the
experience
there is some sublimating state that reigns throughout
in the merciless silence of spraying snow
the emergent bitterness that plays out as a fetish
where I rise through the stairs; knife in hand
upon theaters of formality and practiced demeanor
becoming whole to the fragments of the past
as the ability to fatten a ducks liver by force-feeding the
creature
is an ancient and intriguing art of man’s abuses towards
nature
done correctly, there is a squeal in the searing of it
as some concept of fragrance comes to mind
the suffering of the animal, eaten like the tallow of strife
boldly hedonistic into unstable futures
As if progressing two steps forward
and three back.
falling deeper and deeper into the forest.
They embrace me with their actions
as the rivers run thorough contaminated neighborhoods
as the flowers bloom in succession
like a chorus rising in time
sung by some myriad of small individual voices
power maintains a more gradual onset
a crescendo distant to my home
brought me here for some kind of humility
in the restless hours
spaces where upheaval consumes inertia
a bitterness draws my talons out
honed from a landscape that knows nothing but venom
in versatility, their eyes have never lain upon a king
as an establishment they know nothing of
to cry for a carnage they cannot withstand
awakening a bloodlust within
this too, is my empire
this too, is my reign.
