#203

Closing shifts.

if you live in the imperial core, you profit directly from the genocide in gaza. yes, even if you are poor. centuries of our comfort and commodities have been bought with the displacement of populations, the manufacture and sale of arms, and the mutual wealth reinforcement of proxies like isr ael. the literal least we can do is offset a little of our privilege by throwing people a few bucks for food and water.

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

- Silas Denver Melvin @sweatermuppet, Grit Poetry Collection

I’m gnashing my teeth like a child of Cain

If this is a prison I’m willing to bite my own chain

a perfect poem from Leonard Cohen

The Child You Never Wanted

you tell me to brush my own hair I don’t know how you roll your eyes and tell me to figure it out

I’m brushing as hard as I can Tearing pieces of my hair out with knots, clumped up and bloody

I’m crying and go to tell you there’s blood mommy I’m not sure if what I’m doing is right

But you scream at me for bothering you Can’t you do anything by yourself? Why did I even have you?

I run and hug her, tell her I’m sorry I cried I love you mommy, I won’t ask again

I squeeze harder, if the hug is big enough it shows how much you love them

She doesn’t hug me back.