Annie Cullinane

Slowly Shaking 

The hornets came first

A creeping and invasive omen, 

Waiting on our porches, foreign, oversized, venomous

Death-Bringers

The buzzing in our minds matched that of their wings as more descended

Hornets of different stripes, wasps with guns and wasps unseen, wasps which burrowed into society’s tongue 

Handcuffs becoming a knee crushing a neck becoming started fires becoming resistance and 

The bullets and bruises in the bodies of our city, clutching white flags with white knuckles

We pleaded for the scales of Justice to fall even, for souls to be weighed unblind 

Flames licked away at dwindling herds, cradling the burned remains -fur and featherless- spooning ash down their throats

Corruption came from inside of us until the world became the size of our walls

Mouths were masked, the sickness and thoughts of rebellion could no longer worm their way from our lips

The leaders rolling our boulder ceased caring, and our beings splintered under the weight of an unhinged nation

Our striped harbingers with glass wings and tails that sting and burn and kill in whichever skin they don

This is the entrance of ends, the sacrifices were not made and the 

Gods are done waiting.