You know how Harley Quinn
sees violence
and it’s not
ugly,
It’s all sparkles
and flowers
and fountains
and furbished mirth
upon a javelin?
It’s crazy
how we all
compartmentalize
violence
like that,
it’s crazy how commonplace
death is,
when I was ten
I promised never to hurt
another living thing
but then
had to make exceptions
for the diseases my body fought
when it fell sick,
and anything trying to harm me first.
It’s crazy
the dead things
at every meal table,
it’s crazy
how the munchin’ fuels my ability
to walk,
talk,
stalk ‘til midnight
or calculate north
out of sunlight.
it’s crazy
how okay
it is
to not be okay
in another’s eyes–
don’t you have empathy
for a dying bee,
a wilting tree,
any of me?
The pain folds
tucked away,
unthought about,
left behind
repetition
sanding down the startle in your eyes
‘til it looks the same gray
as everything else does.
Are we steeped in the boiling pot,
like frogs who don’t notice the slaughter,
don’t flounder? Is it just glitter
that won’t come off our skin
‘til even the glitz
grows drab and boring
and we
think of nothing better to do
than sink to
apathetic stew?
***
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Jordyn Saelor 