Ash on Tongue

 This is for the phallic monument built on a foundation of female teeth.

This is for the patriarchal idiocy that confuses a biological urge with a mandate to govern.

This is for the leaking vessel of senile lust in the White House.

This is for the walking autopsy held together by the starch of state secrets and the grey fluid of the unprotected.

He doesn’t just sniff the hair of the future.

He licks the sweat from the brows of the condemned to see if the meat is seasoned enough for the slaughter.

This is for the geriatric infection presiding over a hospice of empire.

This is for the dark bile of every drone strike swirling in his gut like a toxic weather system.

He is the grandfather of the mass grave and you are the ones who keep the oxygen flowing into his necrotic lungs.

This is for the glowing colostomy bag of the television.

It leaks the image of the celebrated predator into your living room.

This is for the fighter in the centre of the ring.

A god for the boys who want to be the boot.

But look at the surgical light.

Look at the theatre where the victory is unpacked.

They had to surgically remove the tampon.

Let that sit in the back of your throat like a mouthful of cold grease.

The steel of the forceps digging for the remnants of his passion.

The metal clicking against the bone.

This is for the mascot of the violation.

The fighter and the president are just two different heads on the same rotting hydra.

This is for the gag made of human hair.

The sound of the tongue being severed to protect the father.

The rupture of the cervix is the only legislation left.

The internal bleeding never stops because the bandage is made of barbed wire.

This is for the interrogation room that smells of bleach and old semen.

The stomach is a knot of burning acid.

War is a mechanical violation of the earth.

The iron meat of the carcass grinding against the soil.

The iron meat is the cobalt.

The iron meat is the marrow.

The border is the jagged edge of the metal vibrating in your joints.

The Congo is the heavy metal in your own bone marrow.

It is the child’s scream stored in the battery of the phone you use to scroll through the apocalypse.

Iran is the smell of your own hair burning when you stand too close to the news cycle.

It is the copper taste of your own panic.

Gaza is the grey film of ash coating your teeth every time you swallow the narrative.

It is the grit in your own saliva.

You better believe in ghosts.

You are breathing in the atomised remains of the murdered and you call it the atmosphere.

This is for the manager of the abattoir in Westminster.

His sensible plan is a physical deformity.

A hardened cyst of policy growing on the neck of the state.

He is the forensic clerk of the slaughterhouse with a cleft palate of pragmatism.

He monitors the temperature of the blood before it hits the sewer.

His voice is a cold speculum.

This is for the pink washed face of the cull.

The landlord of your soul who charges you rent for the right to breathe.

The hospice of the red flag is where the conviction went to die of neglect.

A collection of middle class ghouls sharpening the knives for the next meal.

They police your anger with a permit and a forensic stare.

The smile is a wound that refuses to close.

This is for the prosthetic limb of your conviction.

This is for the digital whimper in the soundproof room.

You march in straight lines and you ask for permission to be angry.

You wait for the lesser evil to finish his meal before you beg for the scraps.

The policy is the collapse.

Your body is the ruin.

You better believe in ghosts.

Because soon enough you too will become a ghost.

The only sound left in the universe is the predator’s teeth clicking against the microphone.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The jaw snaps shut.

The digestion is the only revolution you have left.