Untitled
Laura Menchaca

I should be concerned about the plight of the migrant worker, picketing somewhere in the middle of rush hour, instigating Bourgeois accidents, and grabbing random people by their arms and shouting at them "does the government own your future?!" I should be locked in my room, conspiring different ways to infiltrate McDonald's' beef supply, to single handedly heal the ozone, to personally feed all those who are hungry. I should be throwing myself over the limp, furry body of a kitten about to be wrongfully euthanized or pacing up and down downtown streets waiting for elderly pedestrians to need help, meanwhile giving metaphoric discussions about the true nature of war to high school students passing by. I should be, but for some reason, I am not. For some reason I can do nothing else but sit here in this capitalist haven that is my room, Indian-style and swaying to Cat Stevens, staring at this picture on my wall of two squiggly lines headed toward a boat. And somewhere on their horizon, little trees of ink blow color off the page and urge the figures down their long, winding road as I, just behind them, follow their tiny puddle footsteps down the path of white. Waiting. And as they draw nearer to the boat, I pull my pant legs up to my knees and run quickly ahead of them, pushing aside their joined hands, disrupting the warmth they are fused by.

Dashing and stumbling,
I
Leap
Into

the planks painted there by some street artist in Vietnam and drift cowardly off the page that I received,
second hand,
from someone
who second handed me.
And thinking to myself, I should be saving the world, but for some reason, I'm too busy saving myself.