public class AmIHuman extends ExistentialCrises { private static final boolean doesThisEvenMatter? = false; int wordsIWantToSay = 267; int peopleListening = 0; for (int i = 0; i <= peopleListening; i++ ) { if (peopleListening > 0) { System.out.println("there is so much i want to say"); System.out.println("but i have no way to speak my songs, pitiful in creation."); System.out.println("my words scratch at the red of my throat"); System.out.println("aching to shatter their confines"); System.out.println("but when i open painted pink lips of candyfloss"); System.out.println("they are dissolved into particles-that-once-were"); System.out.println("oh how i wish my tongue moved my words in the right way"); } else if (peopleListening <= 0) { System.out.println("but do words really matter"); System.out.println("if no one's listening?"); } }
public int talkOutLoud (int strengthOfAccent) { if (doesThisEvenMatter == true && strengthOfAccent < 2 ) { System.out.println("who are we to snatch up the stage of our ancestors"); System.out.println("to further our quest for validation and deny the beckoning"); System.out.println("to empty our souls into a vortex of language?"); return wordsIWantToSay; } else { return 0; } } }
Salonee Verma is a Jharkhandi-American writer and the co-founder of antinarrative (@antinarrativeZ), a collaborative zine. Her work is published or is forthcoming in Backslash Lit, Pollux Journal, zindabad zine, Dishsoap Quarterly, DEAR Poetry Journal, and more. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find her online at saloneeverma.carrd.co.
Ruthenium (she/they) is an artist and writer currently living in the state of uncertainty. They believe creativity is real-life magic, and are obsessed with texture, context, light, and the question “what if?...” Their work has been published in Sandpiper, Rabble Review, Celestite Poetry, Lavender Lime Literary, Vulnerary Magazine, and Warning Lines Literary. Their various presences, publications, and collections can be found at https://linktr.ee/Ruthenium.