Today's poem is by Laura Mullen

Lactorium
        "Death is a gang-boss" (Paul Celan)

And your heartlessness and your longing for lies are like milk to me
And your self-harm and your scapegoating are like milk to me like your rage and
Your unwillingness to pay taxes your desire to buy cheap things these are like milk
And your dirty wars and your drones are like milk to me
Because the words "collateral damage" and "byproduct" are so white
And your anxiety and your depression and your plastic and your failure to recognize
The guilty above a certain level of influence are all so thick and creamy
And your tolerance for violent injustice I drink this I drink this thickness
And your active shooter is like white milk to me and your racism is a kind of milk
And the killing of children is like milk to me the body left on the street is like milk
And your sexism is like milk to me your rape culture
And your protection of the abuser who is white and male is exactly like milk to me
And your adoration of the richest and most powerful is like milk to me
And the years when you fail to work on a cure for the disease because you despise
The afflicted those long decades are like milk to me
And your guns are like milk to me your precious guns more precious than anything
And the blood of the dead is like mother's milk to me this spilling
Whiteness the names of the dead and the grieving I go on swallowing
And your protection of corporate interests and banks is like milk to me
And your privatized racist prison system is like milk to me
And your inadequate healthcare system is like milk to me
And your underfunded educational system failing that's just like milk to me
And the pale word "addicted" erases everything
And justice has a white bandage poured over her gouged-out eyes
And the word "undocumented" is full of vitamin D
And your air force and navy are like milk all the whiteness you pour into
"Trouble spots" for "stability" spilling out spreading out blanking out
And the tears of those sleeping on cardboard and rags under the overpass salty milk
Because the word "homeless" is like the word milk I drink it and drink it it's like
Drinking sunlight it builds strong bones and teeth and teeth
And the phrase "can't hold down a job" is like milk to me
And your bullying your shaming every way you hurt the spirit is like milk to me
And your worship of the fascist your support of the dictator is cold is like cold milk
And student debt and catastrophically failing infrastructure
And your love of the lies of the would-be legislator these are just like milk to me
And your prescriptions for painkillers the refills the new prescriptions and medications to help you
shit and to help you stop shitting and the anti-anxiety pills and the anti-depressants that stopped
working and the new anti-depressants that might be working or might not be working and every
pharmaceutical company lobbying doctors to prescribe more painkillers white white
Blanked out by your logging and mining and fracking and drilling and every place ruined
Forever is now that it's ruined forever and uninhabitable just like milk to me
And the end of languages cultures species knowledges ways of living is like milk
And your contempt and self-pity and fear are also like milk to me
And all the lives deformed or erased by your lies and imaginary needs are like milk to me I drink
And I'm drinking I choke and go on it's endless this white on white on white on white flag
Unfurling to spill from the edge of nothing into nothing stinking of methane

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Copyright © 2024 Laura Mullen All rights reserved
from EtC
Solid Objects
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission