brownies 

we're making brownies 
on sunday night in
the kitchen & 

talking about 
how we're bombing 
Syria now

i'll kill myself
before i go to war 

i'll shoot myself
in the leg to escape
the draft 

& i'm cracking
an egg on the side
of the mixing bowl 

using the orange spatula 
to combine the ghirardelli mix
with the 1/3 cup of oil
& 1/4 cup of tap water

i'm thinking
about how i know nothing
about Syria other
than what i've seen from
videos i've scrolled past on
Facebook 

i tell everyone
that it's pointless to
get so worked up about
a possible war

that it won't change anything

fudge & chocolate chips
mingling in the air

i don't mean that
i think it's pointless to be upset 
about whatever is happening 
in Syria 

i just mean that i 
don't think it will even
influence our lives
as much as it does theirs

i say 

it's not like 
i can fly to Syria 

& i spray the
8 x 11 dish with pam 
from the cabinet

let's change the subject

where would you
go in a zombie apocalypse? 

we don't live in aftermath 
with the sky handing off it's hinges

i don't actually
know what chemical weapons are

i assume they burn 
if struck by missiles

i assume they burn skin 
& rip out the throats
of buildings

i assume there is more
pain than a street light
in collegeville pennsylanvia
could ever hold

i say
i feel so powerless

& i'm supposed to 
go vote or something

& i have a president
who's writing in smoke

These are not the actions of a man
They are crimes of a monster instead

a singular monster
who sits dormant somewhere
beneath rubble

beneath broken pipes 
& gnarled highways

a single monster regurgitating 
chemical weaponry from 
his razor teeth 

from the white crosses 
that mark vietnam & korea

the timer on 
my phone goes off &
the brownies are done

their surface cracked slightly
like the surface of 
an alien planet

i stick in a plastic fork
to test if the inside

the fork comes out clean 

the house smells like 
a bakery & i pour the icing
over the warm brownies--
spreading with 
the back of a knife