Mariupol

I still don’t know what a bomb sounds like.

I think I’ve heard an explosion, once.

Couple miles away.

Gunshot or firework?

More often than not

the latter.

Once,

some friends tipped an overstuffed,

faux-suede couch onto its ass,

like a tall cow.

Set it ablaze.

That’s the hottest I’ve ever felt.

Sweat buckets that evaporated

with the polyurethane and balsa beams.

Must’ve lost ten pounds that night.

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand what’s going on so I shouldn’t try to relate, right?

Like, who am I to write about a war in a place that I’m not from, but war is bad and evil, but I have nothing to compare it to,

A tired city-village,

melted siding

rippling to the shingles

The dream is alive like a firing fly,

chipping away at the edifice of state

one errant dynasty at a time.

Make life boring for all at any cost.

Let no generation,

in every corner of the land

inhabited by humanity,

remember the devastation,

desecration,

and destruction wrought

by the machinery of war.

All we need is love,

right?

I think Woodrow said that.

Look, I know I’m just evading and that my sarcasm and sneering platitudes are just some tricks that I pull out of my sleeves whenever I feel sad, but what do you do?

How should I know what to do when the hospitals are followed by The Best Wargames of 2022 and mushrooms in ArtNews?

I’m trying to buy a house and kids are dying in an apartment in Mariupol.

Huddled close for protection.

There are some things that tenderness, heroism, and conscientiousness can’t fix.

The mushroom clouds are growing

from our century-old basement floors,

but what about the homeowners

whose cellars are in full bloom?