Everyone’s dying & I’ve stopped feeling after more than a million

reported  deaths.  More  than  Gettysburg,  more  than  Hiroshima,

more than 9-11, more than any massacre we’ve led in the name of

our names & precious statues commemorating lives spilled across

battles fields to preserve our freedoms to love who we choose, kill

who  we  must,  die  how  we  wish,  masks  off,  lips  locking  like  it’s

1999.  But  it’s  2021.  More  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  last

pandemic,  more  than  three-hundred  days  since  I  last  kissed  my

mother,  since  I  last  hugged  my  father  &  said  goodbye  under  a

purple sky, driving into a future none of us predicted. Ignorance &

greed the surviving ethos from sea to shining sea where we perish

by the thousands, day after day, after many, many days. My father

incinerated—his  ashes  boxed—no  more  breaths  left.  No  time

machine to take us back to when none of us were at risk, dancing

away nights, hips moving to sweet beats veiling Biblical threats:  

 

We  were  never  meant  to  remember.  We  were  never  meant  to

survive.   Tick   tock,   Tick   tock,   American-borne   killers’   fists

pumping  high,  middle  fingers  cutting  through  the  air  along  with

the viral lies. Failing us all until we die