We announce the world first existed in the form of a human body without mouth or eyes / without limbs or lungs / without glands or genitalia / without necessity of food / without motion / without empathy / without virus or vaccine / poison or antidote / so we became the first virus / & we became our own vaccine // We became open mouths & closed eyes // We became legions of cold compassion thrumming in a spacious forever / / flailing architects constructing intricately engineered endings // Over & over // For everyone / everything // More monstrous / more energetic / more insensate / more infernal // Bodies like sword-wielding skeletons slashed apart then reforming again & again until a fire-greased weapon unfurls them for good / bodies like drainage canals / bodies like drain cleaner / bodies like ant poison / bodies like battleground states / bodies like badlands / bodies like butterfly knives / bodies like broken touchscreens / bodies like breathtaking vistas of bodily hell / bodies like empty penthouses / bodies like empty infinity pools / bodies like empty stomachs / bodies like empty eye sockets / bodies like empty food courts / bodies like empty milk cartons / bodies like empty playgrounds / bodies like empty classrooms // Where you expect to find ocean you only find whalefall / recycling / crumbling forests of bleached coral // Where you expect to find clarity & awe you find cosmetic & pharmaceutical pollutants // You can’t stop listening for sounds that will never be made again / because the listening comforts you / but the listening hurts & the comfort hurts / grinding your teeth to the rhythm of the dead refrigerator’s hum // Our sweat is cold & culpable // We toss & turn & braid with the sheets / put our ears to each other’s chests expecting to hear heartbeats / instead finding dial tones / yearning for blues & greens you’ve never found in the flesh // So many bright rooms with no people inside // So many tangles of rain molding our homes from the inside // So easy to hide the profane from the sacred / to pretend the sirens surrounding us are nothing more than silence // Your cadaver lies supine in a tranquil field of lavender //
This poem originally appeared in Strange Horizons
