Feigned youth on the floor, feigned vitality of the legs and arms, feigned hope for appealing ever.
Big feelings about the texture of human skin, big problems about the colors of human bones.
Heavy eyelashes and lips, heavy ribcage, heavy spine.
I seem temporary, I seem makeshift, I seem perishable.
I seem unstable. Look how the trees lean when I touch them. Look how the air bends when I breathe.
If I am real, then I must be accidental. If I am intentional, then I am the product of error.
I am a series of repeating letters that people a thousand years from now won't understand.
I am a collection of molecules that consumes the earth and blackens the sky.
I am too sick to survive. I am too detatched to feel. I am too unwelcome to be sheltered.
I am small.
I occupy less space than the most substancial animals (when I take a step nothing shakes)
I am worth less than a tree (I give nothing to the earth, no oxygen)
I am the product of white people with guns stealing the earth.

When we were all twelve and afraid, we were supposed to be comforted by the image of loyal followers rising into the sky as the lord blew a trumpet. That end was supposed to be anticipated fast and hard with bitten fingernails and twitching muscles. To get there, we should stay clean, stay silent, stay still in our sunday school shoes.

Now I feel like there is an ocean under my skin that is dissolving me. Machines have dulled my ears and my hands shake. I look forward into fog and I hear no trumpets. Folded like a sick bird under blankets, I cover my ears and wait to sink as everyone around me rises up.

Safe are the quiet and still. Safe are the pale and smooth.
Safe are the veined children with closed eyes and symmetrical white hands.