24

Brewed in socially engineered Incubators,

The technical marvels,

the fittest of all species

Gifted with consciousness

and Alpha Alpha Alpha

The pissings and the hissings,

The tang of broken bones

and disappointment

in your tea-cup perfectly

placed beside

two unevenly poached eggs.

The morning newspapers

containing glory of all things

bought, sold and traded

for a life,

for a laugh,

for someone losing their self-regard

to afford child support or life.

The noise that keeps you awake

let it be seashores

or the sound of bullets

rounding off at

seventeen hundred miles per hour

and your snore.

The times you’re alone

when your mirrors stop answering

to the smiles for everyone

you’ve been drawing lately.

But the mirrors refuse to answer

because maybe

you’ve been doing it all wrong.

And you turn off the light to realize

how dark and lonely it is.

Because you’re not afraid to die,

You’re afraid to live.

And you know when I look at you,

I see right through you,

For all of your victories,

And all of your sins.

For the ninety-secondth time

you’ve been thinking about killing yourself,

because you were too afraid of your sexuality,

because you’ve felt insecure in your skin,

and your inability to finish

the sentence with a broken accent

when you wanted to talk about Gods

and the worms in your gut.

Can’t you see,

If I can see,

And if all you have

are your Sundays and Fridays,

why do you think of the other six

so differently?

Why can’t you just be?

Count how many airplanes

take off in a minute,

and see,

how the Sun sets

differently

in July.

And say your goodbyes to

Twenty-Three.