The Pattern
Have you noticed the pattern?
They take turns saying whose bombing and whose ceasing
but there’s no sight of peace?
Haven’t you noticed there is no ceasefire?
Ever?
I wanna strike now, run out of my house
now, screaming noooooooo
at the top of my lungs
but I don’t wanna look crazy and lose my job and my kid
so I take my meds, drink my coffee, go to work
I hear my heart in my left year
We call it anxiety
We call it CPTSD
I wanna stand up and spit and push this weight offa me
It’s a man with bad breath forcing his tongue in my mouth
I wanna push him out the car and drive over his foot
But I don’t (cause see)
Fawning isn’t a choice
It’s when survival instinct takes over
It’s not just what we women do
It’s what the whole country does
what much of the world does
under the thumb of its abuser, oppressor
A police state is a state of fawn and freeze
and it’s all we’ve ever known
I dress down so I don’t get raped
ICE got me scared to look myself
I kiss back in an icicle of fear
I file my taxes just in time
This is not wild life
Animals in the wild life
Humans in the wild like
This real evil will make the strongest
man religious
and turn the softest woman to stone
This type of evil make a philosopher question
their own intelligence
an artist thinks they’re cursed
a child feels they’re a burden
This isn’t wild life like this isn’t quite right like how it should be
If we made it all why did we make it so hard, right?
Something ain’t right
Humans be born guilty
and live their whole lives
not changing a thing
each generation born more guilty
Our species appears to be on a multigenerational binge of resources
and it’s violent beastly horrid
I hear my heartbeat in my right ear
Is this anxiety?
Or just my body screaming
You’re alive
You’re Alive
And you have to do something
?
Rhea Melina (she/her) is a queer multi-ethnic poet, birth-worker, parent, herbalist, educator, and hopeful romantic. Her chapbooks include a place to put things (Bottlecap Press, 2023), Not My Wasteland (Bone Machine, 2024), and Ballard Coyote (Scumbag Press, 2025). Her poems have been published by Elizabeth Ellen’s Hobart, Gnashing Teeth, Hare’s Paw Journal, Fiilthy Glo, Blood+Honey, Text Power Telling, and Black Lily Zine, among others, and her poem “Faith,” calling for a free Palestine, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She believes that all illegal occupations and wars should cease and refuses to settle for less. found confetti is her first full-length collection and is available now from Carbonation Press and www.antiquatedfuture.com.
