for a random dude at an anarchist convergence

by mk zariel

after terri lynn davis’s “Quadruple Sonnet To My AWP Lit Crush”

post-movement despair is different with you
i text him after giving a youth-liberation talk and g
etting off-topic after ten minutes—you ask me
if i’ve radicalized you yet, and i reply that a
genderless negation can dream. i chose you because it was
the summer of ‘23 at the time and nothing seemed weird compared
to the ANews comments, which means you’re normal and i’m loved
i look awkward in the mosh pit, that night you just stay in and read

like a boy after my heart. i film my friend’s workshop like an embarrassing
aunt at a toddler’s recital, you don’t laugh at me, and i call that
character. that summer sounded like Against Me! and lively debates
that dissolve as quickly as light-grey midwestern rainfall
and i learn for the first time that theorists are normal people, except for you
and we discuss anarchonihilism in some random graveyard while trying
desperately to seem unpretentious, but still, i call you and launch into Swiftie-level
dissection of someone’s analysis of Baedan, you don’t make fun of me,
and that’s how i know you’re mine & yours & who have i become

and a year later i send you a zine about egoist anarchism

and you tell me you’ve outgrown me and it’s the fall of ‘24 and everything
seems weird solely because we like it that way
ten of us gather at an undisclosed section of desire—we declare
that we’re done with monumental organizing, but really we’re just gay
and tired—except that you are assimilating—and tired—but still.
could we co-author an anonymous communique, so i get to watch you

try to sound like anyone but the neurotic angel boy
i fell for? have you read Renzo Novatore? you haven’t? why are you done (with me)?
what the hell is wrong (with you)? do we need to start an affinity (group)?
have you read Terror Incognita? do you just ask because you’re afraid of
me and feel too weird to admit it? here’s my definition of negation: not
industrial sabotage or any of the classic stuff, but getting a text from you
and not responding, because maybe that’s generative too.

mk zariel {it/its} is a transmasculine poet, theater artist, movement journalist, & insurrectionary anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. it can be found online at https://linktr.ee/mkzariel, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.