“NO TAKERS”

This body is god’s burner phone to reach u
Dot dot dot now if only i could
Dial but who tf remembers
In all this rage at life–denuded,
Cracked plane.

Phone limits emotion
To the speed that I can
Reach u, limns urgency
In the scrabble of text-drunk
Thumbs, our private
Avant-garde, even if
Even if no data, no takers
Nor livid eyes. Now that dying
Is a regular ecstasy
Of ours, a lifetime
Is no real fuse and
Revelation no bomb. Hello dot dot

Dot, hello retention
Of every jagged response, hello to every
Screed perfect and deleted
Hello to the drop of hearts
When the bubble flops
And u endured the smallest
Silence ever, can’t be recorded.

— Atsushi Ikeda (@ah_daradara) is a writer/musician in Montreal, whose work has appeared/will appear in The Ex-Puritan, ergot., Expat Press, and more.

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