burn and leave your hometown, said New Found Glory
by Liam Strong
Saturday: 16
mile an
hour winds
leaves ensconced
to wire fences
like a tapestry
of flaking paint
hail melts as
soon as it hits
cement
this year no
Saint
Patrick’s Day
what does the Earth
know of panic
is it the 24-hour
diner closed
for more than
24 hours
when we see
an empty restaurant
we call it
dead
nobody wants to be
a bead of
an abacus
panic another term
for starving school
children
they say love
is a kind of disease
if we were to give
each other a bag
full of hands
whose family
member
would we be escorting
away
to say nature knows
panic means
we are alone
to call chaos pure
is to say
all that we
want is within
reason
Liam Strong (they/them) is a queer neurodivergent cottagecore straight edge punk writer who has earned their BA in writing from University of Wisconsin-Superior. They are the author of the chapbook everyone's left the hometown show (Bottlecap Press, 2023). You can find their poetry and essays in Impossible Archetype and Emerald City, among several others. They are most likely gardening and listening to Bitter Truth somewhere in Northern Michigan.