Nicholas Browning

Beautiful People

 

My word is a weapon,

What it may rend is up to you.

I aim it, I point it,

Towards your enemy;

Our enemy.

 

My word is carcinogenic,

My word is radiation.

My word is the warmth of embrace

And the bite of rejection.

My word is all I know.

 

I will share it,

Spread it, give it wings

That it may fly.

It will descend upon the living

As it does in the afterlife.

 

My word is the chain

Tied to limbs and blocks;

The unrest of grievance

In the garden

At a rest stop.

 

My word is rhythm,

Flow, and dedication.

My word must be your enemy,

If you reject what

It might kill.

 

My word is verse,

The malnourished and decayed.

My word is heaven,

Unprovoked,

Whole yet unmade.

 

It is fallen candy on the pavement,

A single fish to feed five,

The hopeless wishing of faith

In soil that will

Never yield.

 

My word is the end

Of me and you.

My word is the creation of us

Betwixt them,

And they themselves.

 

My word is the iteration

That sight in time might change.

That it would become unlike itself,

That us and we,

Would not have to see

 

Beautiful people;

Lost children at the bottom of lakes,

And the homeless,

Burning

In the sun.