Nako's art

Beauty

is a fat black woman

walking the fields

pressing a breezed

hibiscus

to her cheek

while the sun lights up

her feet

Beauty

is a fat black woman

riding the waves

drifting in happy oblivion

while the sea turns back

to hug her shape

I'm very ugly

So don't try to convince me that

I am a very beautiful person

Because at the end of the day

I hate myself in every single way

And I'm not going to lie to myself by saying

There is beauty inside of me that matters

So rest assured I will remind myself

That I am a worthless, terrible person

And nothing you say will make me believe

I still deserve love

Because no matter what

I am not good enough to be loved

And I am in no position to believe that

Beauty does exist within me

Because whenever I look in the mirror I always think

Am I as ugly as people say?

now read the same words, but bottom up

under lockdown law, divinely,

everyone is a cripple now

on the surface of our brains

a varicose vein is hatching

enclosed is the name of the skeletoniser.

can't be said by mouth

its voice is an induced coma.

this new germ makes useless eaters of us all

life unworthy of life,

but you don't know what it costs.

in the fallout bunker, netflix streaming

masturbating instead of taking your lexapro.

the winged eye & the angel of the shattered face

consecrate your night sweats

when you wake to a notification, tinder

has a new video chat feature for you

you say

"Who knew the apocalypse would be so boring?"

I won't bother telling you again

I go into the backyard for the first time in weeks

two pigeons fight on my back fence

in the ultralight noon

I turn my face away & say "this is not an omen"

the skeletoniser moves in our blood

like a termite in out house,

not knowing its name we call it anything else

migraine, sleep, newsfeed, death.

Solomon's lost his ring,

who will catch the mountain cutters now

to obliterate the stone months

the time between texts

the time between texts is a chokeholder

I can show you

how to die of plague in the morning

& still get the laundry done