Trigger Warnings: Poverty, death. Breathe in the exhaust of my old 2007, darling; let the smoke roll through your body— don’t fret, don’t hide don’t cough, don’t leave— Spring comes with green leaves and my wallet’s exhausted as is the leather hide. Feed me, darling, fill my body, build it into rolls of fat and watch it roll like bread, leavened by your hands, your body no longer exhausted. Let the poverty out, darling— we don’t have to hide from its hidden dangers, let it roll out of our minds, darling until we can leave everything— this exhaustion and those mortal bodies— in the old soil, those bodies buried and hidden beneath, exhausted. Let the new grass roll above us, leaving us behind. Come, darling. Join me in the dust, darling. Show off your skeleton body to the bugs under the leaves— we won’t need to hide much longer, under the roll of time, below new exhaust from new cars, while we are hidden among the rolling dead, no longer poor nor exhausted.
James Ofria, ’23