We Outlast Empire is a recurring series which aims to highlight poetry that explores the many angles of our current global and political situation. With words, we hope, we may transmute a part of ourselves—a part however small or large—that can exist without drawn borders, without violence, without injustice.

What are poets for in destitute times?

the bramble of the paranoiac
longs to leave the imaginary world
news from afar spell disaster
my world is touched by disaster
history
my body is not the center of the universe
but the ego knows it is in part connected
strings playing me like a 1000-chords harp
this music that seems to explode me
the being task is simple

to live & die a good person

and three hundred and thirty three hills
open to the light and butterfly-women
play as if we were trees
with gravity holding us firmly up
while we reach mightily for the sun

The voices in We Outlast Empire refuse complicity and draw their own borders. If you would like your poem to be apart of this series, please email mina@apogeejournal.org