POETRY

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Mackenzie Robin

When the sun rises tomorrow
Hot and orange like a dry throat
I will keep on living
Bright enough to burn a cornea
I will stomp like a dinosaur
Laugh like a petulant child
Show all my teeth to the sky
Like a wasteland king
Like a fairy prince
Like a mancub howling at the moon
Defiant and annoying and gritty and full of love
I will be alive
Because I am alive
Unburnable

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In a world of dog teeth and sacrificial lambs and a sun that doesn’t care
A hall of mirrors,
An advertisement,
A trillion billion hate crimes,
A diet of a credit card a week
Keto-microplastic style,
Acid rain, pyrotechnics, a gun in your favorite coffee shop,
A face you should know better but it just scares you,
I will keep being alive
And I will be joyous in the face of it all no matter how hot and raspy
the sun
because from now on I will always have been alive
And I will demand joy
From my being
From my being alive

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