fantasy

ask me about the labor of liking
a narcissist
and maybe we’ll get to the present
which was whose idea
or my old foolish hope
that one moment of trust would
overcome the relentless branding
of every single person
that is the constant erasure
of difference
and therefore of commonality
that wherever you go in public
you’re a customer feeding
another customer their status
and that you’re expected to smile
for the camera
that that’s normal
that celebrities are gods
who aren’t worried about nazis
or the democrats who serve nazis
while chiding the working class
for not voting
for someone else’s money
what would happen if we stopped
petting the newsfeed
what if there’s a respect that’s only
attainable through solidarity
and what if that solidarity is only
attainable in a street
where you cannot own or control
or manipulate another person
where there’s no such thing
as a president
and presence means mutual aid
and what if this street made us
talk in new ways
and our words led to new kinds
of pleasure that we can barely
imagine right now
and someone said i’m searching
for a home that’s not just a drug
at sunset
and what if we got addicted
to this street
like one can get addicted
to someone who fucks them right
and what if this addiction
started pouring from one street
to another to another
and the streets were full for days
and days that never end
and what if in these days all the pain
and betrayal and abandonment
in every single person’s past
fed one strange collective ego
and in one breath
we stopped taking shit and got each other’s backs
and we rose up like an ocean
and what if in this fantasy
that makes me breathless
at the thought of the end of being used
and the great release of pain
that would be so just
we’d have to make up a new word
for justice—what if even then
the zombie still wanted a cut—

the zombie still wants a cut
so i return my body to my body
to say what it needs to say—

you can use what i love
against me
you can kick my head
into the curb

you can use what i love
against me
you can kick my head
into the curb

you can use what i love
against me
you can kick my head
into the curb

you can lie into the mirror forever
you can you use what i love
against me

you can gaslight the ocean forever
you can kick my head into the curb

you can gaslight the ocean forever
you can kick my head into the curb

you can have yourself
for dinner
you can have yourself
for dinner

the street will still be there
the ocean will be here
the language will be made
the people will be free