Nuke

People want paradise, and they will have it.
— Cain, Robocop 2

that first high so stratus you don’t even feel
your layers of skin disintegrating into autumn
leaves scatter-blown into the wind, too fixated
on brilliant flash kissing an old negative
into your eyes, a photograph slowly developing

hits you so tidal you’d think this high came
clear across an ocean to level you, so megaton
the saviorism has a blast radius whole buildings
disappear new ones mushroom cloud
in their place               unblind yourself

every time you blink something is gone
the electric white calming into a blur orange
              radioactive       the crash of hungry teeth
inside your middle bones chewing
at the calcium walls               now you

urban decay       ruin porn       safety concern
                        can’t remember that first
hit or how long you’ve been crashing
only that the high isn’t so high
anymore           the blur orange now crystalline

technicolor           the corner apartments now
research lofts           the greasy spoon now small plates
          craft cocktails           white owned coffee shops
selling countries for $5 a cup           this is how your city speaks
          in tongues

Delta City snake oil             makes you sweat
          ‘noid out           that’s just         the drug working
through your system         call that         the fallout
when you find yourself         a soul outside its body
                                    a ghost story told

                                               around a bonfire
of colorful       beards & appropriated         culture
          the only         evidence of you even being here         a lone
shadow charred                     into the side     walk         life ashed
            by a violent                entitled                             sun

Read more from Issue No. 11 or share on Twitter.