Never, dear liberty, comes

all the cities are similar

during the melting summer

in this vast chunk of steel

all the cities remind me of something

I never truly lived but only heard

through a dubbed-over voice

afar from here

I never felt the sun as a reward

and I think I would never say “winter”

in the same way

all the cities

— even the tiniest ones— look so big

when you cannot pronounce everyone else’s name

//

did I tell you I run into

“Poet in New York” by mistake?

: walked into a weird dream

filled with gigantic cows & blood rivers,

Skyscrapers with ground beef in their gears

“New York is not that big of a deal,”

you say,

my stomach is a wound

and I'm only looking for a way to gut

the mask of serpents

that nested my face

: all the beasts of anger

that gathers beneath

my skull

do you think a nameless land

is gonna feast on our skin?

//

chords are still dissonant

and all the cities are electric

somehow

are we winning? Is this how it feels to win?

I do not know how to win and yet

we are winning aren't we?

Do you think the sky is big enough to shelter all

the little scalped bodies

underneath?