I woke up today, choking
on black oily liquid, like every other day. And when I sit up,
I try to breathe through my nose, but my lungs
are in a 40/60 air to oil ratio situation, but hey, it’s an improvement. At least
I think it is. I spend hours with a finger in my throat to bring it all up;
my throat is raw by the time I fall asleep
(soothe it with bread & honey says the old stories).
Sometimes
I feel it sinking through protective layers into my muscles,
my tissue, my bones, and sometimes when I sweat, small black pin points cover
my skin. Cuz it is a part of me & I can’t lose it. Sometimes,
when I’m closer to a 20/80, I wonder if it’s keeping me alive,
if I let it sit, I could lose myself in it. Maybe next week, I’ll see.
After all, it’s just life or it’s death, right? Create a Snapchat story
for evidentiary purposes: Someone tries to count me, but mi familia shantys new houses
and no one can get accurate data. I am not
accurate data. I have deterrotialized all papers, bonfire broken shingles
in the road, a stop gap where I can breathe in anger, breathe out
smoke, the oil once choked now burns and only when their eyes sting, water, redden,
can they see me, and it takes more than lasers
to cut me out, so bring on the bulldozers. Violence cannot find
mi familia, we slip wire into unsaveable data that grows back
from soil where we got buried, but we were living
instead of dying, fingers that continue continue continue
to tap out in cyborg future codes//lost languages.