UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

I Was Born to be Your Bruh

by Benjamin Bellas

I come like a hexagon formed by the heat of a bee’s body in the boundary between
Everglades and the parking lots of tomorrow. Chew me now, tessellate me later. I come
like an improvised hive built inside a water meter box tucked in the ficus shrubs that lie
between a Walgreen’s & funeral parlor. I call out into the opening of a sloppily placed
dumpster as if it were some kind of oracle, “I’m walkin’ for lozenges.” I holler, “I need
more lozenges,” such that the hollow may thunder back to me as only a decree from
our lord and savior could. I stand as god’s ventriloquist—arms straight, fists clenched,
leaning in & beckoning for more mountain herb, more lemon balm, more sage, more
hyssop, more elder & peppermint. “God demands more horehound, more mallow, more
linden flower, more thyme!” We need more time more than anything. The only high
ground in Miami is the terraced temple of our collective trash stacked such that the
vultures need not leave the sky to fill the desire held in their mouths. In Allapattah the
trash entangles amongst the people & gravel. The row of nearby businesses from east
to west along 29th goes: Heavy Dollar, Lavendería, Deco Coffee. I say, “when we want
to steal a community, we start by introducing an art gallery”—and overhead another
airliner sighs. Lower. So loud. Still lower. I say the word liminal. I say the word quotidian.
I say ephemeral. I say, “class & pedagogy are an inherently strangled mass.” I say, “meet
me under the Rauschenberg this Sunday for mimosas & brunch.” Every day in places
so distant as to be insignificantly visible from the most holy penthouses of Dade and
Broward counties, forager bees pollinate the fruit trees, and every day, up there on the
Mount, that monthly HOA payment affords a sunlight that lasts just a few moments
longer.

 

Benjamin Bellas currently lives in Miami, Florida. His work is forthcoming or has been featured in Hunger Mountain, Jet Fuel Review, The Nelligan Review, Bellingham Review, The Broadkill Review, Qu Literary Magazine, Fives (A Companion to Denver Quarterly), The Pinch, Cadillac Cicatrix, and Drain Magazine, amongst others.