In Case Of Apocalypse
Bring fruit bread and wine
for a biblical feast. Wrap
your fingers around your bottom rib. Wiggle it
a little. Seem detachable? Drink honey
from the rivers. Talk to every angel
you see. Fall asleep at the wheel just
to see if that works. If you meet yourself say
look at how we’ve grown. Say once
we were a kid swirling dry beans
around a metal bowl in a plastic kitchen
inside the real kitchen and now we’re a masochist.
If your other self starts crying that’s probably
not you and you should run. Look, if
you’ve made it this far you’ve probably
had to kill a few somethings. But that’s okay that’s
just how it goes. Rip meat from the bone.
Bring firestarters. Bring an ice pack. If you
have to think can I live without you twice
bring me too. Cross country, babyboy. Beat it.
In case of apocalypse, bring your body. In case
of apocalypse, bite like a dog.
some brand new conjugations
Rotting. Morally corrupt. The cowboys
in gay porn. Suburbia in a flood of apathesia,
but on alternating days, a flash-bang light show.
Our friends have eating disorders, anxiety diagnoses,
and talk about wanting to fuck with their hands tied.
Rotting. The mushrooms, the vultures, and the new grass
from the decay blanket that keeps the Earth from shivering
in space. In the 90’s, everyone shut up and ate
their TV dinners while faggots died in New York City.
Given the choice between becoming a pastor and a homosexual,
you’d have to think pretty hard because you have a priest kink,
apparently. Suburbia in a flood of apathesia, but thank
God we have poets, the ones who are good enough
not to mention blood or weed or events too current or too
romantic. You can lose a lot of blood before you die, but
as soon as the tattoo gun goes through the fat and into the muscle,
it’s over for you. Time for caskets, which cost enough that
a kid would have to get another summer job to buy one.
Rotting. In the 70’s, David Bowie was in the magazines.
Given the choice between shattering the ozone and leaving the atmosphere,
Americans chose both and left for the moon with the aerosols
on full blast in the kitchen. Our friends are gonna outgrow this.
We’re gonna outgrow this. The alien ghosts in gay porn.
Suburbia in a flood of apathesia, and all of this to say, how strange and lovely
it is for us to have met at all.
Lily Beck Q. Nobel is a poet and novelist living in Boulder, Colorado. Their work has been published in en*gendered mag and Blue River Review. Presently trapped in a stalactite cave– send a telegram with any ideas on how to get out.
