FOR MAX

      Ok, so you know someone who died horrifically

      Ok, so you know an animal who died horrifically

      In a fire let’s say or a building’s collapse

      Or, ok, so you know someone who’s dying right now

      Except maybe not horrifically

      Except your idea of horrifically is changing

      The way a gun death seemed less horrific than the gas chambers

      Until the country kept ignoring gun deaths

      Now they seem horrific

      And then I really try to consider the word horrific

      And horror and I think about how I only watch horror movies

      In black neighborhoods where they make jokes

      The whole time about the dumb white girl that’s going back into the house

      Until I’m pealing with laughter in my seat

      And I think so much of my country, they are dumb white girls going back

      Into the house, except they’re men, too, and I’m offended by

      The attribution of feminine qualities or I’m offended

      By the qualities deemed feminine because I’m one tough bitch

      Who never has to be one because I don’t leave the house

      I don’t know if I’m mourning you before you die

      I don’t know if language can write me away or into anything

      I’m a butterfly. I’m a pig. I was never in a body to begin with.

      I remember as a child trying to think of what animal

      I wanted to come back as and not being able to think of one

      Because everything is prey to something and my luck

      As a human seemed too great, irreplicable, next time I’d for sure

      Be a child kidnapped or molested or abused

      A mother on her way out of the Y last night told another mother

      How she pinches her son because she doesn’t know what else to do

      And then makes a joke about how she’s going to kill him

      And it’s not a fucking joke, it’s not one

      And I wonder if that would be a horrific death just because

      It’s his mother committing the act

      That seems like enough even if the death itself isn’t torturous

      Or inhumane, and I don’t know what to do with that word anymore

      Because almost every action I’ve seen lately lacks compassion

      And every life I’ve seen lately has misery in it

      Last night a man in my area tried to run a woman’s child over

      Then got out of his car and said, “You dirty Jew, I should kill all of you.

      I should come back with a gun and kill all of you.”

      There are a lot of reasons for people to point a gun at me I guess

      I might die before you I guess

      Because that’s our country right now and either way

      We’ll die without each other a little

      And if I come back as a cricket, I’ll seek out the bird

      If I come back as a mouse, I’ll seek out the fox

      I could do this cycle a hundred times and still enjoy it