I’m awfully glad to be a Beta

I swallow my soma like a good girl

(we are such stuff/as dreams are made on)

who wants to be an Alpha?

they work so hard and they’re frightfully clever

they call me pneumatic

what does that mean? I’m just a Beta
I like going to Community Sings and the Feelies

(screen touch on your skin makes me delirious)

I’m glad I’m not an Epsilon or a Gamma

and Deltas wear horrid Khaki

but why doesn’t the Savage like me?

I want to lie with him unzipped

everyone belongs to everyone at the World State
but my incomprehension needs to be preserved

intact at all times I can’t connect I can’t emote

a cold bottle against my flushed cheek to cool

ardour for just one person I am spoonfed longing

never the entire meal never the swell of seduction

if only I were wrapped up in this man’s wild colours

to reach out and kiss the lids of his sleeping eyes.