By al.lucyna

I surrender

to the teenage wasteland
that was going to the mall, buying up every
five-dollar surprise bag
                                    keeping the landfill pockets flowing through plastic veins
                                    and the liquid made me feel alive, if only to tear through

                                                                                                more    more    more

I surrender
to the chemicals that layered my skin, marketed
to make me a better human              as long as I bought it

                                                            because it was two-for-one

                                                            because it was on sale

                                                                                                need     need     need
my heart still lusts for those material lifelines whispering in my ear
                                                                                                you finally belong

                        clutching onto the pulsing voices,

     I lean in closer to hear threads ripping open,

    dropping goods at my door

and I

surrender

that I never stopped them, told myself

I didn’t know any better

I couldn’t stop                                    taking, you know?  

it was so easy to steal from corner stores and ladies’ pockets            even though it wasn’t me

                                                                                                I got blamed for it all the same

by the end, I had to decide which friends were the burners
and which ones got burned

which ones were disposable?                                      It was my turn to set fire, ignite

good riddance to cheap friendship bracelets that snap under pressure

                                                                        to watch their beads unfold

                                                                        and roll            roll                   roll

                                                                        in my palm, I count their everlasting

                                                                        devotion to me

                                                                        drop them one by one off the edge

                                                                        watch them tumble

                                                                        like they’re a purple, but

                                                                        my favourite colour is blue now

and it’s uncool to care about things that don’t matter anymore

About the Author

al. lucyna/ Alley L. Biniarz is a writer, poet, and creative writing teacher with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She writes about nature/the environment because, as many writers before her, she is fascinated by the relationship between human and nature. She believes that through art, conversation, and education, we can fight climate change together.

Her creative work can be found in Feminist Space Camp and The Drive Magazine, and she is currently one of the poetry editors for Harbor Review.

About “it’s cool, officer, it wasn’t me”:

al.lucyna loves to leave her poetry to open interpretation, because words and images can mean different things to different people. So, she leaves you with two things: 

1.   We can’t change the past, but we can ALWAYS change our future. 

2.   It is always cool to care.