petals of a white rose

It starts with a whisper whirling at the center, a few ripped heart-sleeves, a taste 

of stranger, vapor on verge of the atmosphere… enter chlorophyll and the chorus 

of thorny dissidents, their barbed tongues snipped and covered with trembling 

handfuls of dirt, planted in the trans-atlantic shadow of a previously underestimated

nightmare. It starts with a hushed breath, an invitation for fresh heap of false starts

and stooped shoulders. I am the fox let loose in my chicken coop. I am the castle of

smoke and the fire hose. Putting myself out continually, persistently quelling myself

with the dew from a white rose.

They said, We are your bad conscience. Grace, it seems, is a storm-switch set to 

kill karma where it stands. When close at hand we witness our habits molt, leaving 

only husks of our honorifics, complacency thickens into russet-red clotting of unfinished

thoughts. Accidents in the rear-view mirror are more intentional than they appear. 

Complicity is the national anthem and we gave up reaching for the high notes. There’s

a hate crime stuck in my patriotism. Ain’t no one coming for this skin. If our axis gets 

shook and we wobble into war’s irrevocable momentum, and I unsheathe my eyes to 

come face-to-face with conscription, will I fail to assemble in the rows, or will I speak 

for bravery like white—

No one knows the outcome. Not a day begins without breaking existential bread. 

Heralding a kingdom once held in the tufts of my breath, it gets exhausting— 

the overstretched armaments, diffusing antisocial situations, our trepidation and 

differentiating invigorating a leaflet with words that stem from the underbelly. 

Was there some use for my perennial description? From the folds of a sky-sworn

emblem, out the mouth of a beheaded intention, a hard line materializes. Body

better off agitated than adequate. Bright noses shepherd the rest past indifference,

bending their hopes in the shape of a white—

lonesome.