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Welfare Check

Camille Rankine

June 4, 2024

Illustration by Tim Robinson.

When I say I’m okay, it’s just nobody’s comingto save me. I’m out of sight this way.With my mouth muddled

I’m so safe. I speak most clearlywhen I’m dangerous. Step to and the room grows dim,let my word slip and the whole world turns

fire and hiss under my tongue. I’ll say I didn’tmean it but I did. You’ll feel better soon, the nightsagging in its silence again. It’s just what you won’t

see: I drift all around mein the snow our shapes make.I move through America looking up

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at the trees, which are stolen, this landa vast and stolen thing and Ia stolen thing deposited within it. When I say

I’m okay, I mean I’m just oneblack ripple on a black sea.I hear that sound my shape makes

in your mind’s darkest room.I am most dangerouswhen I speak.

I step in the fire and hiss.The whole world turns.Everyone’s looking, but nobody sees.

Camille Rankine


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