Who gives a fuck
about the colour of your skin
or that you’re a boy playing with dolls and makeup
or other boys
in a closet full of skeletons

Who gives a fuck
about your neighbour screaming because her head’s being bashed through a brick wall
again

Who gives a rat’s ass
if polar bears are adrift on melting icebergs
or children are dying at sea in matchbox rafts
and in some war – there’s always a war –
we live in a world with borders with detention camps

Who gives a fuck what Buddha said
Or Gandhi or whoever
some bald dudes telling me to be the change
I’m waiting on the world to change

Go tell the disappearing Irrawaddy dolphins
Go tell pro gun pro life lobbyists
Go tell the kid crying because s/he’s called too fat/thin/tall/short/hairy/scary/stupid

I don’t give a fuck
I’m not responsible
I didn’t ram a cigarette stub up a turtle’s nose
I didn’t arm angry impoverished young men with weapons larger than their bodies
I didn’t enter this world to clean it up
Make it better
Fuck you
Let me live

Let me breathe air packed with pollutants
Dance in acidic rain as it tears up the earth
Let me buy more stuff to assuage the distance from the me-ness I don’t feel
Retail therapize myself
Let me wrap my heart in gauzy denial
There are babies out there, who will have babies
Let them give a fuck

Dubai, 5 July 2019