Roadkill
by Jasmin Singer
When I pass you I shield my eyes, avert my gaze, change my footing, gasp, wretch.
What’s it all for?
You’re discarded. Disregarded as nothing, as gross. As guts.
You are bloody disgusting.
Your tossed apart body pieces, track marks intended through you,
maroon guts spilling onto the pavement like a splattered 1980s paint design,
like spilled cement: You are as permanent as the moment, as forgotten as your sisters.
You are nothing at all.
You are everything!
You were born into a family of pioneers, of squirmy small bundles of now.
You nursed on your mama, like I did.
You played with your brother, like I had.
You found shelter from the wet days. You foraged.
You survived.
You lived in your (perhaps complicated, perhaps simple) world where hope sprang eternal. Where instinct and safety were nurtured.
You are truth. You are thrown away.
You are real. You are tossed aside.
You are impossible to confront, easy to forget, as fleeting as a meaningless kiss, as solid as the unforgiving, steaming pavement beneath you now.
When I see you, I do not look.
You are dead, and I will have none of that.
I have a life to live.
I have truths to bury, unless they explode — like you — for all to see,
but no one to look.
