Mya Matteo Alexice's Queer Death Drive

I refuse to be president.
or mother of two point five

or owner
of land I have no
right to own.

but that is what you want
us to build for ourselves
in your image.

exposed to precarity so young
we develop a lust for suburban respite.
we’re your neighbors now, you see,
your one ________ friend.

sometimes I wish they had never let us in.

this temporal allowance
this conditional love is love is love
I’ll always be odd with you. always
at odds with you; a nuclear family fission burst—

I kink outwards, spiral
from the doubled helix
in rebellion. I was not born
this way. I am not trapped
in the wrong body. I chose

chaos I chase the queer death
drive I exist to unnorm
& thrash & flail & fail

at the conditions you’ve outlined
for acceptance.

I refuse
the honor of being
one of you.