This garbage place. This regurgitated
planet. This viral puddle! This muddy
infestation. Burning globe, this disembodied
house, what is this trash world with its false
promises. Who told me it’s good here, my mother?

Well, look at her, she’s talking to the cats
and the babies. Who here promised me
beauty? Was it the orange tree with fruit like bulbs
which flicker on over only a few days? It may
have been the orange tree. Was it the rising sun,

orange like a yolk of a duck egg? Was it that duck
with its majestic green wings? Well, her green wings
lie. This place is undeniably a dirty floor, all of us dust-
mites making it more flammable by the day. Where
were the caterpillars going? Today I watched a line

of them each one clinging to the next
with its nose, or its ass, the whole snake of them
feeling their way collectively to the next place. Humans
would ruin the caterpillars' journey if we were
caffeinated enough. If someone said caterpillars

believe everyone has a right to affordable healthcare
the national guard would come in and stomp
them out. Meanwhile bodies pile up while
people eat foie gras. What is there to assure me of?
I don’t believe the moon. Look at it. Promising me.

No moon, you will not always be here. I no longer fall
for your tricks— in a few days you’ll disintegrate, and we’ll be
abandoned to the dark once again, to those little pebbles
of light, also liars, guiding us nowhere but our own
mythology, our fiction, our poison.