In the time it took to read this sentence
Two girls made mud pies by mixing the dirt
from their kitchen
With their mother’s tears.
In the time it took to read this sentence
A wife cowered from a shower of stones
Striking her flesh
All for the crime of existing.
In the time it took to read this sentence
A father stumbled home drunk,
Like a shard of glass washed up on the beach
Bleeding in your foot.
In the time it took to read this sentence
A soldier found his mind won’t go to sleep
It’s been stretched and abused
Putty of the gods.
In the time it took to read this sentence
A surge of dysphoria rippled under the crust
of the earth
Harmonic tremors running through our
ignorant lives
Echoes and screams rebounding off
tectonic plates.
And in the time it took to read this sentence
I picked a flower from your hair
The world’s melody racing in my bones
Not aware
That an earthquake had just occurred
directly beneath my feet.