Lineage of mirrors | Kassidi Jones

Ocelli

I still think about the flies
they are obsessed with my skin
I taste like honey          or rot

if this body is walking decomposition
they know something I’ve forgotten
about being black and moving quickly

they bullet around a room gravitating
toward me         hungry as a gun itself
the whole world can relate to wanting

to consume a body         like mine
in small pieces      my flies are proper
keepers             of my living waste

they swarm in my bedroom
I cannot keep count of them
they    kiss me        in my sleep

when a fly lands it vomits
I am covered in sugar and bile
               at least i am covered

my flies are trying to save me
from a tasteless death        by
consuming me before a war does

I hunt flies for              being black
they’re fast and buzzing      too loudly
they     kiss me       in my sleep

I crush flies against dirty glass next to
severed legs of other stupid flies who
believed freedom was external

they speed toward closed windows
they are hungry for the sweat on my legs
they chase death on delicate feet

I can’t name all the things that want
to hurt me today so the flies rub
their wings together and        hum

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