kaleidoscope

A chamber of raw miscellanea,

round-the-clock holographic mania.

You can’t douse us with glitter when we’re nonconsensual.

Smoke and mirrors made you, the manufacturer, presidential.

How do you expect people not to query the flecks of trauma

tumbling in the riptide of phantasmagoria?

How can you hold us to another’s eyes and say:

Look! Just because we’re beautiful, that means we’re okay.

Oh, the beads of tears shed just to belong,

in a kaleidoscope you made for wrong.

© Mollie Mardel