The Internet
Friday night – 5:36pm
You are about to leave your house
for real dinner and real drinks with your real friends
When you notice…
That someone is wrong on the internet
There is a response to an article that you posted
and they say that racism is over and they say it in all capitals
Game. on. flame. war.
And you’re like
Neo-colonial paradigm
And then he’s like
Post racial society
And then you’re like
Intersectional feminism
And then he’s like
#notallmen
And then he somehow manages to mansplain man spreading
all while manually manipulating the world’s smallest mandolin
What a douchebag
He is online ranting and raving about how racism and rape culture don’t exist
and that’s exactly how these things keep circulating within our culture
We need to root out these trolls because by burning the bridges
they hide under you are making the world a brighter place
And yes, you have spent Friday night, alone one your computer… again
But at least this time you got a poem out of it
Plastic Bags
I am awkward in the living room, I know that
you hate staying at your grandmother’s house
You tell me that she is from another age, and
how she believes that you are both going to hell
I can hear you arguing in the kitchen as
she is changing the garbage under
the sink, condemning you to an
eternity of burning over coffee grounds
and jagged egg shells. The holes
in the plastic bag are sopping
wet with the liquid from
rotten bean sprout juice,
putrid meat trimmings at
the bottom, I can smell the rot
collecting at the bottom
of the plastic can
You both try to ignore the
smell and she covers it up
with a clean plastic bag
Erasers
When all the erasers you
have whittled down to
pink specks of rubber
convince everyone
you have been silent
this whole time
rending the meat
between your bones
the space in between
words is wasted
the volume of regret
you have written
encyclopedias of
longing your body
tires of silence
small as the lump in your
throat your commonly
held impossible notions
Aaron Simm is a poet, playwright, and hip-hop artist, living in Victoria. He is a multiple-time slam poetry champion, and his work has been featured in literary journals and on stages across the country
Published in analogue magazine’s Oct/Nov 2015 issue
