Meat Market
by Christian DeBellis
It came to me in a dream.
If we are all of the same contents,
and my vanity stems from being
an ugly child,
then we must be centered around reason,
because enlightenment
is what happens after reading Aristotle’s
Politics and downloading Grindr.
But the trouble is that nobody remembers
what they learn, or maybe they do not want to.
For most things there are ready answers.
To emptiness there is nothing.
I am most obsessed with the things
I cannot have.
Is this clear so far?
I do not feel comfortable in revealing
clothing anymore,
but like the way men
look at me when wearing it—
something like enlightenment,
or sex, or violence,
or maybe it's all the same.
If the scientific revolution has taught us anything
it is to want sex but not to enjoy it.
Peeling back the wrapper of a Trojan
an apple falls prophetically onto my head.
I think I have attuned to that inevitable orbit.
I am my father. I am my mother.
If gravity has taught us anything,
through these notions of reasoning and deduction,
beauty is only about obliteration
which is only about the blue sky.
I think I’ll stand outside
and let the wind rearrange me.