Autophobic Fruition

B.

submit to a world of subculture

where subversive tendencies try their best to make their way up the folds of your pants

breaking hems and loosening knots in your stomach

undermining reason and forcing unwanted syllables through your teeth

I restrain, I refrain from thought all too mundane (but who’s to say?)

rivers run beneath my feet

rivers of weary words that play war with one another

causing calamities bound to the books of rhyme

the rhythm of worlds, of material men

scraping their palms for any remaining flesh that hadn’t been burned off in the fire

the incendiary stage that collapsed without sentiment,

that ruined (wo)mankind for eternity-

not an undo-able sin,

but a plot laid out within our genetics

already inexorable within the code of our existence,

the patterns woven unto words, into limbs,

into the follicles that make up their homes on your scalp

while the martyr stood at all of our doorsteps,

in the singular form, but once mixed (s)he was poisoned

and thrown to the outskirts of our every action

somehow lacing each line and phrase and mention

but never being looked to or towards

never waved to or acknowledged

well, we ask, are we surprised?

with the manufactured and well thought out rape of our minds,

hands, feet, and vices, sold and told and never given a hand of our own

to watch the martyr in her self-immolation

she doesn’t calm down,

she doesn’t win wars,

she barely just is

—Bailey Riley