vanishing point

This is not academic.
To me, to her, this is about having our asses grabbed by
a middle-aged white man and not being able to say no
because rent takes over half our salary and we
need the paycheck at the end of the week.
It was not academic when my friend called me
at 2am crying that he had been raped
they told him he should like it, he’s a fairy anyway
he was drunk because that was the only sensible thing
to do while you waited to find out
if you had AIDS or not
swooping in with your blackcrow academic robes
does not make that phone call
academic
or the 20 years it took to find out
if he made it or not
It is not academic that
mothers and wives stand
with empty arms,
able only to embrace
the shape of what was, trace the outlines
of faces on photographs
how dare you cover that with
a crow wing of sleeve and say
if they had only complied
with the police.
I was diagnosed ten years ago
and it is not a matter for hypotheticals
that I stay on my feet
propped by pill after pill
the measure of my illness
in black and white magnetic
imaging
if you tell me ten years is enough
I am now too expensive to live
wave your sleeve dismissively
at the days I crawl out of bed
and barely make it to the couch
I will not consider that a conjecture
but an attack on the life I have left
I know I am less
but I am not nothing
a vanishing point detectable only
by mathematics.
When you speculate on the shortness of her skirt
when you say that he should have complied
when you talk about his right as a CEO
to raise the price 700 times for folks who die without that pill
when you cut away those things
with your words
we do not see speculation
a discussion
we see the fire
smell the smoke
hear the crackling
and the bright heat across our faces we
are here
and are riding this bus
you steer by remote control
because you never were forced to book a seat
we know we are already burning
and you are standing half a mile away
waving your hands, discussing
our immolation
and measuring.

