REAPER ON A SUBURBAN PORCH
"One evening, I sat beauty on my knees - and I found her bitter - and I cursed her." - Arthur Rimbaud, A Season In Hell.
Disdain. Disdain for the planes that drop bombs on the shelters
of mothers feeding their children. Houses of couches where men sat
to talk on bureaucracy and philosophy and cars.
We continue to ignore that we don't know where the sky ends and starts the ocean
we continue to ignore that rats will walk among our bodies like they do through our belongings,
we continue to ignore that our houses are falling, and buildings are rising so it's easier for bombs to catch them.
Fathers bring food to the table and mothers cook the cow on the stove
and their tiny children drop the food for the dog
while their grown ones starve as a rebellion against their own little world.
We consume and go on and on and on and on on on on on
until we hear the first shot hit the skull of our doors.
Then we find that the reaper sits on every suburban porch.
With fear we look up to the sky and see the blackness of it all
like it was painted with carbon and the clouds with black box dye.
We watch planes leaving trails of death behind like a bloody starry night.
Apathy. Apathy as a result of the inevitable death of our neighbor;
whose house was sold by his 22 year old stock market wall street son.
House that was later demolished to build an empire of cybernetic weapons.
Look at the latest dress that makes your body thinner
Look at the latest book that makes your romance standards bigger
Look at the latest news you can post about for pity.
Teachers give their students the notice of war,
ask them to be educated but won't give an account
of the crimes they will suffer for being the youngest soldiers to stay up all night.
Nothing left to mourn in a city corrupted by waste and corpses,
we step on the flesh meat and bones of our presidents and mothers.
We repeat "Don't worry" day after after day and after day after day after day...
Daydreaming of a life where the world won't end,
way back in history when women were slaves
and all men thought about was the progress of their essays.
Rebeca Zavarce, 15, Dominican Republic ✯
“Just a girl who wants to put a world into words.”