REW NEPUBLIC

Miles:
Welcome citizens of the New Republic
We have come here on the plane of a new horizon
Rising higher in our humanity
We live in victory now.
We have abolished crime.
We have rid ourselves of war.
We have become a powerful, functioning machine,
And now we can live free.
We are free.
In the rise of the New Republic.

Kerri:
I remember
Her hands felt soft
Holding mine through parks before the shadows came
Palms pressed together until they ticketed our affection
But this wasn’t the first time
My closet told a story of the price tag
Every kiss paid for in full

Meg: Will they remember
When touches felt like new days
(Alyssa: A love forbidden)
Sunsets on your skin
Mill me down

Miles:
Some murmurs have come from the disloyal
For the weak will always falter
Because they can not accept some slight discomfort
They have rejected our laws
Defied our fines
If harder enforcement is what will convert the misled
Then we will take the responsibility
To stop the insolence
Through whatever means necessary
And bring peace to our nation.

Both: Through whatever means necessary.

Alyssa: Mine was smiling
It had been years since I remembered to do so
Was a little rusty in my rendering
I crowbar bent my mouth into a pale pink half moon
Remembered what it felt like to be weightless
Before all of this happened
*before them
(meg: we're all just trying to find the sun again)
And that’s when they came for me
With their hollow eyes and metal faces
They saw my lips split something deadly
too human
unfamiliar
they ripped my shadow out from under me
force fed me my lips for breakfast the next morning
and it tasted like the pages of books my mother used to read me

Kerrolita: He fell from the swingset
But mamas not watchin’ him
Her freckled nose in a charcoal book
Face scrunched in pain,
He screams.
Kneeling down to comfort my little brother’s face
Eyes woven together like cloth
I press hard on his bleeding wounds
Whisper into his little ear not to cry
He can’t cry, he can’t cry

Miles: There are no tears

Kerri: I watch my brother’s pupils dilate
Fear-filled, red drops dripping out
Of his lidless balls
My mother stood lifeless
Wrapped her arms around herself
Cos it was the closest thing to a hug she could find

Miles: There is no embracing

Alyssa:
I was holding her when they came for me
Arms frozen around her shrinking frame
They had to break both shoulder blades to unhinge me from her
Cut my fingers from her face
I was stained beet red and screaming,
Plucked from the earth before ripening long enough
I opened my eyes to darkness
Collapsed in a ball of broken bones
I could feel the rest of them around me
Quiet, broken just the same

Meg:
Make me fiber
This world has turned inside out
To change the organs of our beings
Can blood flow cold?
Can love live in a vacuum?
Will I be enough to feed beginnings to people before the end?

Miles: There is no laughter



Meg: There are still a few of us
Swingset kids pumping to flip
And midnight society songbirds
Writing poems with paper cuts
Underneath your fingernails
We’re hidden
In the place where the rainbow forgot about
Was bleached out of
Throats slit and still stinging

Miles: There is no poetry.

Meg:
Removed our minds from books and art and emotions and the gutter
And place them in padded rooms
Milled us down

Kerri & Meg:
Make me fiber

Kerri:
All I did was catch his tear with my hand

Alyssa & Meg:
Make me flour

Alyssa:
Make my broken bones stretchers
For canvas we’ll paint one day

Miles: These are the laws of the New Republic
This is the life of the New Republic
Welcome to the dawn of the great new

Meg: (WHISPER)
Can you make bread of me?