I Joined a Death Cult – Lucas Mancini

October 3, 2025

Adam Lanza learned from Dylan Klebold / no use
letting your mother live with it / they say
mothers of victims forgive / mothers
of gunmen / you believe it? / Grace
is like quicksand: you see it in cartoons

I never thought it could happen to me / pressing green thumb
prints of sun into my eyelids too often / last time I opened my eyes
the world lost color / staring into any light
could blind you / I thought
there but for…

bones are deceptively light / cruelty is
seasonal / the marrow
of heat / is all / god’s
creatures / needles
stuck / to a deafmute tree
or at least / this tree
never learned to speak
deciduous / my prejudice
is evergreen

what did the prince think / of his first leper
what would it even mean / to suffer
each fall in silence / this autoimmune
inflammatory disease / niche diet
explains my fucked politics / my insides / sunburnt
enough / any mother would blush

confession / college-ruled / sun-bleached
left / illegible ant corpse / under optic focus
orient / your aristocratic streak
first / outward
then to immersion / blend
the insides blister / at the thought
of stomachs filled / stolen
bread / bristles of sunset
red in the west

chopping block of red
firmament / stuck
out tongue like popsicle
toddler / wants attention: Mom
look blood / me, who / once
I come clean only / a mother could love