The best crystal for protecting against fascism is a brick.

You were supposed to die quietly,
politely walk off into the bush

and vanish beneath the tōtara and tutu,
never making anyone uncomfortable,

so they will be mad at you for this:

the darkly glittering broken glass,
smoke weightless as prayer, distant sirens

keening as if someone who mattered
had died, but they’re just scared, since

you’d prefer to smash something
rather than let them touch it

---

Joel LeBlanc is a writer, chef, and herbalist from Pōneke Wellington, Aotearoa, who writes about queerness, magic, capitalism, ecology, and carbohydrates. His poems have appeared in Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, takahē, The Spinoff, Turbine | Kapohau, Tarot, Stone Circle Review, and more.