GeniusBy Liam Siemens
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We didn’t want to be great anymore. We were satisfied with being merely okay. We tore up our PHDs, lost our clocks. Someone made a tandem bike in their garage. Someone made nachos with lime. There wasn’t much to run towards, but we didn’t sit still either. We traded shirts. We woke up to warm massages. We spoke to our plants and scratched our dogs. At the end of the year we were as sharp as arrow points, ready to be flung again. You wouldn’t believe how bearable that was: our bodies opened up to the air like something stripped. The air fell around us like something we were both inside and outside. It was enough.
Aristocrats of the Future (Part I)By Liam Siemens
We were trying to work together. We took over the Khans and planted trees in the far East. We made a website where you can turn pixels into gold. When we kissed it was like four worlds aligned, but it wasn’t always easy. She liked to lick the rust from her sharpened sword. She couldn’t stand the smell of my fire-roasted faux meat. When things were rough, we took vacations terraforming planets. She loved to see me fill the lakes. I loved her design of dinosaurs. When it was all over we’d sit there. Watch our planet grow old.
Liam Siemens is an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. He has been published in the Literary Review of Canada, Prism International, SAD mag, and elsewhere. He is currently at work on a book of utopian poetry about the future.
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