Today I walked past that fence. The wrought iron is still mashed like a crater, and some of your blood is lingering, fried by the summer sun. Someone left you purple flowers, even though it’s too hot for them to last.
Dearest daredevil, I remember the day you died. When your tires screamed, the breeze and the birds stopped singing. I swear I can still hear your bones snap like glow sticks.
Honestly, when I noticed cops huddled like maggots around the place that makes warheads, I never considered an accident. I hoped maybe someone had finally screamed loud enough, and that the bombmakers would choose a new craft.
But you were no Bushnell. You died from joy and gravel and going too fast and the stupid fucking fence. I guess if a choir of 38,000 (and counting) is ignored, they won’t stop making warheads because of a dead biker.
Apparently you’re the second person it’s grated like fresh cheese. As a kid, I thought that fence looked spooky, and my Dad always told me the people behind the fence made airplanes. Cool. I thought airplanes were cool. I guess the airplane bit was a partial truth.
This week I learned they don’t actually make bombs. They just make the part that propels the bomb into the family rooms. I’d like to chalk “bomb engines” up as aiding and abetting.
War should not be an economic sector. Nobody should be caressing warheads and corporate niceties with the same hand. Why the fuck is genocide profitable?
It’s painful to believe in free will these days. Because the grandest blessing of free will is that nobody can force you to sharpen slaughterhouse knives. You’ve got to want to do it. A world with warheads and free will feels like a contradiction.
Does a career sharpening slaughterhouse knives warrant one complicit?
Dearest daredevil, I hope you got a shiny new bike out of this. And I hope you spend your eternity giving jubilant Palestinian kids rides around purple clouds where there’s no warheads or fences.