'Things That Travel Through the Air on Any Given Day in America' by Andrea Goyan

Birds, airplanes, falling leaves, butterflies, bees, mosquitos, plastic bags, cigarette butts, balloons, kites, soap bubbles, honking horns, chirping birds, barking dogs, children giggling—

Bullets.

Screams.

Blood.

Sirens.

   

Thoughts and prayers. 

Weeping.

                

Thoughts and prayers. 

Sobbing. 

    

Thoughts and prayers.

I pluck those empty thoughts and bitter prayers from the air they’ve polluted, snatch them as they pass their speakers’ lips, slurp and swallow the words, all the words, the vowels, the consonants, and the speakers’ impotence, all to be digested, shat out and flushed away. Forcing the loudest mute. 

Allowing the voices of the masses to break through the din and be heard floating in the air every day in America.