you keep asking me how it feels
i don’t know what to say—
like a burning boat
a cloud dissolving into its last drops of rain
a circle of funhouse mirrors all pointed at each other
infinite and grotesque in every direction
.
like a grain of sand that can’t know whether it will be
melted into a window in a skyscraper
or a silicon wafer in a data center strangling the earth
or mixed with cement and frozen in place forever
or left to swirl in its riverbed
.
like the thin chorus of the cicadas that still emerge from the ground in new york city summers
the seventy-three percent of wildlife that has disappeared from earth since the nineteen seventies
a forever staircase descending into complete darkness
it feels like the end of everything
.
like the red hook grain terminal that has been abandoned for decades,
dead capital adorned with graffiti from before the stairs were demolished to keep you out
ghost ships all around, but no ghosts
.
like everything else,
a world that closes around me
a claw with muscles seized
papered-over windows in a frayed heart
a long way down
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