the world is ending
and i am cowering in the rain
outside of its iron clad gates
that slam shut like your teeth
with your carnivorous bite and your carving knife

and the white man’s mansion is daunting in this wrath
the water is beating against me like a natural sort of torture
like a weight that is meant to push down on my little-girl chest
cracking my clavicle into the cement

it feels like i’m drowning in this man-made fiasco
i can’t see through these eyes anymore
too dirty for the work i have to do
they are like glass plates
fogged over from the steam of this burrowing anger

i’m knocking and knocking
like a heartbeat
pulsing through the air
i hopelessly wait outside, curling my blue fingers around the metal poles of the gate
around the pillars crafted by the hands of God
and organized institutions

i have come too far for this
for you to grandfather me through the system
our name is empty beyond these walls
the wood is common in my other town
your root is common in my other town

but i still live without your invasive eye.
your cathedral-like pupils have great enough depth that Moses could part your soul
they’ll use your bones to build their pews
that’s all they ever wanted you for, anyway.