World is a Rascal
Kiana Perez Granados is a fourth year UCSB student majoring in English and Black Studies.
By Kiana Perez Granados
World is a rascal. Have you ever been to Santa Barbara?
White beaches are just cocaine and everybody
turns gold in March; Midas comes on his surfboard,
drinking a peach beatbox and saying fuck all the time.
Our palm trees stick out like green swords.
I look up every now and then, waiting for the wool sky
to unwind to an azure string.
The marine breeze has pinned my hair back and now
I hear waves when it should all be silent. Our fog is thick and pretty.
It glistens like Saturday morning forehead sweat.
Even when we are dirty and stupid, we are young, justified.
The air is light. Someone must’ve put a hot towel over this town.
World is a rascal, though;
I’ve summed up what I know.
There’s a bloodhound on the television. Big teeth gnawing on watermelon. When he gets to
the rind we turn it off; you all must forgive me for this image, but there will be heads in the waters.
Surfer dudes will feel them beneath their boards. They’ll crouch lower to maintain balance. LandShark
crowds will drip Lager into the dead, agape mouths, mistaking them for unlucky fish.
When they begin to pile up on the shore, their babies buried in the sand like turtle eggs,
the stink will burn through our sunset. The seagulls will develop a human taste,
having pecked at too many scorched scalps.
I mean to be abrasive. The world is ending
somewhere else.
We ought to be in space, with the nebulas that don’t have to give a fuck. Santa Barbara likes to sleep
with the news on. It’s the kind of white noise they don’t have to worry about.