stevie redwood
This world is bullshit.
FIONA APPLE
i.
Monday, headache, coffee, work.
Unholy screech of a trash truck
backing up down the street,
unholy vision of tire tracks
branding the oil-stained concrete
of the colonial abstract,
truck tires rupturing arteries
of the modern metropole.
I open the window, light
an American Spirit,
watch flames burn the paper
red, then black, then white
as ash. I used to smoke only
in the dark. Now I smoke whenever
the church bell rings
or doesn’t.
ii.
Monday. I wake up
as ever, run over
by the trash truck wailing
hydraulic exhaust
ion outside my window.
I exhale over the resonance,
startle a house finch
out of the topiary.
The trash collector looks
like my father. I look
toward downtown,
the Salesforce Tower
a parody of itself. The
bells of St. Peter’s chime
their brutal measurements over
our lives. Our time, our value,
their rules. I light a Lucky Strike
& count American flags
against the skyline.
iii.
Monday.
I wake up sweating with rage
over wage labor.
Outside, a trash truck beeps
like it needs something.
I’m already throwing everything
I have into the garbage
patch. I want to hurl
my body down
but I won’t
do that to a worker. I wonder
what his name is,
how much he gets paid,
if he’s disabled yet.
I watch trash bin after trash bin
flip upside-down, shaken
until empty as it gets.
I light my last Parliament
so I can burn something
as I fantasize
about a
different
dissolution
stevie redwood is a disabled toisanese jewish neuroinsurgent introvert homotrash littledreamer bigmouth bitch living & dying in frisco. they’re unimpressed by scene queers, artifice, & pacifism. they’re fond of shittalk, porchsitting, leaflitter, & riffraff. they dream a different end of the world
