On the Burning Away
JCD Kerwin

A siren screams and
radiates back the screen
of my black and white, black static
cellophane, underwater,
claustrophobic world.
I never see,
never see,
I never ever see kaleidoscope colors,
never a light-bright cornucopia of
my ten-year-old, happy-go-lucky dreams.
Those stupid fucking reveries
blew up in brimstone fire when
I learned there’s no such thing as Faraway
and you can’t sew stars into your pockets.

[The fruit of a thousand apple trees would
taste better if the snake would nicely mention
the seeds are made of cyanide.
Instead my eyes go wide
as I lean back and hack
for air while I wait to breathe again.]

It all fades together in the same old
coffee-drenched, psychotic robotic days.
The air smells like burning plastic and
we’re all electric blinking lights trying so damn hard
to make math problems into Green jobs because
no one gives a shit about paper anymore.

Libraries are just graveyards for all the little children’s dreams.

When I grow up I’ll keep a junkyard
so I can save out-of-date non-collectibles
that everyone’s forgotten and
everyone thinks are just myths
and legends of a time that never was.
(I’ll keep books in my basement and
become a relic just like them.)

I’ll wrap myself in armor
and scream stories at computer screens
and make-believe
the people of the world can hear me when I say
I’m saving them…
I’m saving them…
I just want to save you.

Oct., 2012