Survival: The Backyard

I would quit Naked & Afraid
the moment my bare feet touched the mud
My special items would be
Bug spray and SPF 1998
My mom had a husky by the name of Rousseau
He was according to her dumb as a rock
His mom is buried on grandma’s backyard
The crypt of family dogs. 
As a child I would line them in chalk
A temporary inscription for eternity.
I’m not a hunter or a gatherer
If I were being honest I’d rather
Paint pre-historic art in that present
on the walls of the caves
Befriend the wolves and get
left behind for befriending the wolves
Be their Prometheus
Teach them their names
Draw them in the dirt with a stick
Point to their reflections on the river and say
This is you
This is me
This is how we survive.

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Beatriz Seelaender is a Brazilian author from São Paulo. Her fiction has appeared in Cagibi, AZURE, Psychopomp, among many others, and essays can be found at websites such as The Collapsar and Sterling Clack Clack, where she acts as Creative Nonfiction editor. Seelaender has only recently started submitting poetry, but her poems have been published by Press Pause Press and The Graveyard Zine. Her novellas, upcoming in 2022, have earned her both the Sandy Run and the Bottom Drawer Prizes. 

You can find me @biaseelaender on Twitter and @slanderdawg on Instagram. Not sure if you guys have tumblr but mine is industrious-sloth.tumblr.com.