2 Poems//mk zariel
principled
grass paths converging into derivative art, problematic
advice echoing through the air. i ask my friend how to
talk to girls & she speaks of primal chaos & i wonder if
this is why she doesn't socialize herself. so eventually
there is a trance state, a 5am flashback-haze, a lingering scent
in the air that reminds me of a thousand people at
once—there is the ill-dated chase that always ends with a
sinking into iridescent static and longings with the loud
silence of an entity who
only wants to talk to you, she swears—but to her
talking is an ultimatum, a beautiful one. the ground is
lurid here, filled with the neon of others' imaginations
the perfection of others' social medias and the
crushing
knowledge that i know her too well to trust
her— the inversion is blinding in its glow, the
void
turned inside out and made a home
and she remains here. she only wants
to hang—out.
what if we transitioned by the taco bell float
at a heavily policed parade that's literally just traffic—
what if we discovered our new genders among
slogans and apologia, if we found community
among random straight people who we know
only attended Pride to score a bunch of free shit.
what if we were undone by the taco bell float
briefly questioned what the LGB has become, why we're abandoned
or quietly, discreetly cast aside
we are unworthy of a photo op, unworthy of the glamazon castoffs
the cardboard cutouts meant to resemble trans futures
what if we disappeared and nobody noticed
due to the presence of the taco bell float? i bet they wouldn't care
for they can't categorize us into the target pride collection,
its beige with a single rainbow stripe, or the target social media, or
the targets of bigotry—for the two genders are a marketing campaign—and
the forgotten. what if pride was never a riot
but instead a doom loop of
heat exhaustion and inevitable breakups and
the creeping despair of knowing
that even our own community ignores us.
mk zariel {it/its + masc terms} is a transmasculine neuroqueer theater artist, Best Of The Net and Monarch Award nominated poet, movement journalist, and BashBack aligned anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. the author of VOIDGAZING (2026, Whittle Micropress) and BOY APPARITION (2025, Vinegar Press), it can be found online at https://mkzariel.carrd.co/, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, writing columns for Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.