Helium

by Rudy Francisco

Get out of bed. The day has been asking about you.

Youth promises us immortality, but doesn’t have the means to uphold its end of the bargain.

because I know that this much melanin and that uniform is a plotline to a film that can easily end with a chalk outline baptism, me trying to make a body bag look stylish for the camera and becoming the newest coat in a closet full of RIP hashtags.

we learn that the heart is the same size as the fist, but we keep forgetting they don’t have the same functions.

I have a fistful of afternoon, and I am asking the summer if it will always be this glorious.

I remember taking a deep breath. Trying to get as much July into my lungs as humanly possible and thinking maybe I’d be able to convince it that 31 days just isn’t enough.

I wonder how long it will take the planet to tell us we can’t live here and the locks are changed.

Tell me how blessed are we to have tragedy so small it can fit on the tips of our tongues.