Monica DeJesus
Thunder before anything else.
Rumbling through the earth’s body like an unruly stomach,
desperately searching for something to fill its core.
Hurry before the rain, before the tears and the violence,
the flash of lightening.
It’s hungry.
Hungry and here you are.
Alone on this empty stretch of land trying to run from the looming rain,
the brewing storm at your back.
a crumb on a lonely plate and no matter how far you run
the earth will always swallow you whole.
Do you even know how you got here?
Who it was that made you into meat?
To be tenderized, not bruised.
Lean green diet, farm-raised, branded nice and pretty.
A product for your environment.
A blue-ribbon cow
With wind breathing down your neck.
Lightning strikes, the same as an open palm.
It’s catching up to you
and no one taught you how to swim or hold your breath,
yet here you are thinking you can run from creation
when all it wants is to devour you.
Bit by bit.
Bite by bite.
Easy peasy.
You should be grateful to be made part of the earth once more, to be making her whole.
The sky parts, mouth wide…
You’re going to drown
You’re going to drown
You’re going to-
Stylus 