Sebastian Anderson

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there will be no diamonds. not in this rough
where my fingers have calluses
and these cracked nails hold hot coals
in the silence of the wood.
where we stumble in our quiet with
the golden glimmer of our souls
in thin threads, stuffed carefully
into our hidden pockets.
tangling, yes,
in the backdoors of these dreams
but still there nonetheless.
and there will be no pearls
within the mantle of the world,
and violence begs our silence,
refutes that nacre dare
to try to form a smooth stone,
and that our knobbly shells
are an instrument for prying
two halves cut with a cool knife
and split onto a plate
they will swallow us raw,
whole, or down us
with cocktails, and we will watch
as they suck the marrow
from the bones of our young
we will scream and be shot silent
and then scream again,
until they have mowed us
clear and fresh like a new lawn,
but roots linger beneath
the soil’s surface, and our bodies
have rotted to be more than this;
we’ll drink from the earth
and her starving sucre
and emerge nonetheless,
into hell, there will be none
no diamonds in this rough,
they are just a figment
but here we will be, glimmering,
in the morning hungry
dew lining the bloodstained scars
on our spines, on our hands,
and still here nonetheless.