By Nicolette Daskalakis
You are considered a weapon.
Everyone you love will need to remain at a safe distance
at the opposite side of a crater
between layers of bulletproof glass.
You will never see them
except outdoors, with binoculars.
They will look less like people
and more like plastic people
in the scale model of a proposed luxury high-rise condominium.
You will never be able to tell
if they are smiling or crying
if they can see you
if they are happy to see you.
Some nights you dream you were a homemade bomb
with colored wires, so you could youtube a tutorial
of which one to cut.
Walk into a hardware store.
Buy a wire cutter.
Be done with it.
There are no wires here,
just you
alone
waving a desert crater away
from all the plastic
shrapnel
of people you’d like to love.