Unsedated And Undeterred

The empire shall not dull your kindness.

The cruelty of the bank boys
shall not drain the brightness from your eyes.

You are not like the others.
The dollar-drilled and Pentagon-pilled.
The ones whose youthful rebelliousness
prolapses out their assholes
the second they have a kid
and buy a minivan
and inherit that property in Gentrificationville.
The ones who stop caring
because things didn’t turn out as they’d hoped
and because that protest they went to didn’t work,
and because online leftists are annoying,
and because that mountain of corpses
on their chest at night
keeps getting heavier and heavier.

No.
You shall not turn out like those ones.

You shall retain your tenderness.
Protect it like a baby hummingbird in your hands.

You shall not let them numb you,
as hard as they might try.

You shall feel.
Feel it all.
The awe and elation.
The disappointment and decay.
The stars and the Starlink satellites.
The stunning seagulls in the sunset
and the screams in Sudan.

You shall not deprive yourself
of one second of this treasured existence.

You remain unsedated and undeterred.

You stride through this glorious madhouse
with your chest cave splayed wide open
to the world.

Reading by Tim Foley:

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/unsedated-and-undeterred