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.