The Last Days of Paradise

We popped pills that made us feel
like jazz, in our sealed, sub-nautical
scream. When the world came crashing
down, not much changed. We had normalized
lipstick stain chaos, shrieking at the sight
of blood but craving crimson. We welcome
patriarchal watchdogs with their murderous
offspring, for they brought paradise with them.
It was a dream, what we waited for—
so long for this world. We danced
all night long, not noticing that our marbles
had been swiped. We didn’t realize
that we had lost. Sometimes people
just need to dance and burn elegiac,
and that’s what we did,
an effigy to a life that never existed.