I have never once written a word I’m proud of.

and I’ve never once taken a breath of fresh air.

Or seen the stars unclouded.

Or felt safe in my skin.

---

I’m twenty years old

And this country is the color of spilled blood,

And the only metaphors I know are bloody,

and I can’t wash the taste of blood away—

not with poison or water or sleep.

---

I’ve watched you all sink beneath the waves,

and I can’t recognize you or anyone new.

All I can do is wrinkle in stagnancy.

And watch as the sky disappears behind factory smoke,

and the water rises above my bowed head,

and the atoms split in the sky over the corpse sea.