Everywhere I look,
the eucalypts,
the beachfront,
the gap beneath the laundry door,
everywhere I look,
the smoke comes.
The smoke comes
smothering brains
and lungs
and skins
and teeth
with the thick taste of
burning buildings and
plastic tvs,
a smouldering.
It carries remnants
of wanting too much
in the shadow of not enough
it clings to the things we lived to work for:
all our lives we worked to die for
the big hand of the clock
we tick by for
the debts and the bonds and
a dog we can’t afford and don’t have time for but
we need
Something
that breathes
to adore
the smoke tries to choke
pushes into pores
fixing already bent bodies to the shape of business and dollar signs and
the big hand of the clock,
bodies crippled by war
we are soldiers of a capitalist hell
blind and thirsty for a story to tell,
a memory to leave behind in the smoke,
even if it means obediently
choking
each other,
ourselves,
to death.
Smoke thickens and thins
forming silhouettes of ghosts
nearly gone
but
not quite dissolving
it always comes
but
never fully goes.
It snakes through the cracks and
hisses behind the walls
It blurs the lines of
friendship and
love
of money and
war
of power and
people
of a dog and
a final sip
of air.
Every place we go the smoke comes
and
bit by bit,
day by day,
It chokes us
slowly
to death.
Ruby Thorburn: Who I am, who we are as individuals does not matter. When we collectivise we begin to organise our way out of capitalism and into another world. This matters.
Title photograph by Ramji (@ramji_creations)
