Three poems

By Kylie Ayn Yockey

neo modernity

fuck the wild

build me cities

of millennial pink

billboards and neon

trees. pump me full

with carbon

dioxide

monoxide

whatever will kill me

quicker so i can move

on to the next

body like a sim card

of personality. fuck

the wild inside of me.

the planet is garbage

and so am i.

we are what we made us.

i’m resigned to live and die

with it like a smart water

cycle.

this is the end and the tea.

ice storm / power outage / rear window

water weight too much to bear / limbs snapping like bone like brittle like a bite / fall or bellyflop or widow-make onto an suv that’s not mine / but i’m watching / waiting for the other to drop / any awake late like me / candlelit and torched and watching / waiting / moving cars / moving to car to charge / dead phones like mine / seen unto each other like for the first time / literally for the first time / smokers insomniacs new-parents nocturnals light-sleepers / every-day-like-it’s-doomsday-preppers / the howling dog who usually only howls during daylight / wind howling / waiting / trees cracking like sleep-crusted eyelids / watching / just neighborly things

preppers

meet me in the empty of borderlands

bring all the water you can carry

we will starve ourselves on cactus fruit

until our bones are beat bare by the sun

let’s petrify fossilize ash-frozen

i want to be at basic instinct with you

see if we can survive the elements

at our and earth’s worst

Kylie Ayn Yockey (she/her) is a queer creative in Canada. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Blood Tree Literature and the Social Media Coordinator for EastOver Press + Cutleaf Journal. She earned her MA from the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University. Her work has appeared in literary publications such as Outskirts, As Alive Journal, Screen Door Review, and more. Details at www.kylieaynyockey.com.