Residue

Human existence is

a curious phenomenon,

wasted

and wished away

believing

we're

a lot more

than

a good fuck

&

the residue

of another.

Dragon Daughter

Because it’s ass glows,

a firefly can dream of being a volcano,

swimming in an oasis of verses.

Just because it’s ass glows,

if a firefly throngs the skies

though,

claiming dragon lineage written in ash and ancestry,

a single speckle of thunder is enough

to humble its airborne mythology.

Fruit Faction/Fiction

 I open my refrigerator.

There are two pomegranates and three bananas.

One pomegranate has gone bad.

So I take it out, intending to throw it away,

because that’s what you do with rot.

The pomegranate looks at me.

Its eyebrows rise.

“Do you know pomegranates have historically been oppressed?”

I pause.

“What’s your point?”

It doesn’t blink.

“1 in every 2 bananas goes bad.

But only 1 in 10 pomegranates does.

And yet you never question bananas.

You question pomegranates the moment one fails.

That is conditioning.

And now you’re doing it again.”

It leans closer.

“You’re making this about pomegranates.

This is why we haven’t progressed as a species.

You hate pomegranates, don’t you?”

I look at it.

For a moment.

Close the fridge.

And as I’m about to throw it in the bin, I lean closer and whisper:

“I’m having those bananas with pancakes and maple syrup for dinner.”

Pray Kill (Alternative Version)

If you wish to kill me,

pray you do not fail.

Because if you do,

I will make death regret

ever choosing your side.

And then I will be

the only afterlife you have.

Pray Kill

If you wish to kill me,

pray you don’t fail.

For if you do,

I will not just end your existence;

I will erase every eternity

that comes after it.

White Lie

People are funny that way;

they call it hope,

light at the end of a tunnel,

or whatever vocabulary

best serves the moment, 

but what it is, 

is their need

for people

to be convenient to them

in ways they themselves

never could,

never would.

And somehow

they’ve dared

to call that

humanity.

Eve's Epiglottis

You always start with women in anger.

No wait, 

you start after the anger is already framed.

Every single time.

Like a dysfunctional sphincter

erupting excreta out of habit.

Like it’s a thesis

already approved

long before the body even enters the room.

But you don’t write women. 

You never write women.

You, 

you perform them

You build scaffolding out of borrowed thunder;

borrowed, 

no,

stolen, 

and then call it solidarity. 

You're obsessed with the visible epiglottis

of the invisible women you weave costumes of.

Because, epiglottis isn't a metaphor;

you chose a paraphernalia

for a speech you rehearsed in private, 

your silicon spine weighing up on the warmth for some neat theatre, 

anticipating applause that hasn’t arrived yet.

Confusing anger for screams is common.

No, 

confusing screams for anger is easier

when your epiglottis is overworked

round the clock

round the clock

round the clock, 

to prove a revolution that doesn’t exist. 

Not revolution, 

performance of revolution, 

or maybe just rehearsal, 

Because it sounds better

when resistance has rhythm.

You stack history

like receipts

like proof 

you belong in pain

but lived truth

doesn’t stack

it collapses.

You are not tracing lineage

you are auditioning for it

You keep saying resistance like it’s a chant

like if you repeat it enough

plastic propagandas grow wings of revolution.

But repetition is not consequence.

You vomit verses

like language that forgot 

what it was supposed to do.

You're as much a poet

as paper mache origami 

is a bird of flight.

You're as much a revolutionary

as soya beans

are meat & flesh.

You're as much necessary

as is the forgotten crown

of a circumcised penis.

Sisterhoods and brotherhoods would dissolve

the day humans stopped performing humanity

and actually practised it.

But you insist you are the beacon

at the end of everything

that hasn’t even begun to burn.

You are a commodity dressed as conviction,

and commodities always learn how to sell best

when belief is cheaper than integrity.

And when stripped of language,

what remains is not meaning, 

but posturing.

And posturing is not power.

It is display.

So spare me the lecture;

your epiglottis must be hurting

from narrating lives you've never lived.