My amygdala is fried–
I feel no fear

Maybe I should

Stress over where
I will piss safely
Or the number of pills
In my little orange bottles,
Which are few but fill
My cabinet so cluttered
Still empty…
I can’t find it
I can’t summon the cortisol
But it’s swimming there
Somewhere deep

Maybe I’m drowning. I’ve been
Habituated to the lick
Of salty water welling in me from
Every time I’ve been pricked
By the asterisk next to my joy
By the daily reminders
That a majority deemed
Our bodies worth less
Than their collective mass
That carry their hateful hearts,
Than the price of fuel
For their fires,
Or that there is no future for us
Full of hope
That our only choice
Is the Immediate

Which now as I dream
These lines is this:
Me, my kids, my dog, and
A small group of queer friends
From work commiserating
In a moonlit sculpture garden
Crunching our feet
On November leaves
Laughing in the face of
Eerie night statues that
Rocky sniffs, suspicious,
Marks his spot on.
Where all I am is
The pure chaos of
Chasing tails and
Conversation

Let us laugh,
We who are cursed
(or rather, just cursed at)
For how bright it glows–
The moonlight in the dark–
Because it is what we have