Unrequited Love

by Kevin Brown

My sudden death wouldn’t bother
the empire—no war won or lost
through my sacrifice, no country
conquered or defended or destroyed
when I pay the ultimate price.

Even capitalism wouldn’t care
about that cost—one less buyer
to beware, but the invisible hand
would move one more consumer
to where I once was, not even a cog
in the machine, maybe a screw, small
and underneath where no one noticed.

And the government wouldn’t realize—
the lack of revenue recovered through
a regressive tax on people with skin darker
than mine would more than make up
my contribution, my vote meaningless
in a state gerrymandered to a perceived
supermajority, sanded off the rough
edges of dissent decades ago.

And yet here I am like a teenage boy
writing a poem to a girl he’s never
spoken to—like Petrarch, perhaps—
the cheerleader whose only boyfriends
play basketball or quarterback, while I
spend my time with the Glee Club, the AV
Team, maybe the Scholars’ Bowl, if they’ll
have me, where we sit and snark about
the popular kids who run the school.