0.
Friends, lovers,  co-conspirators, criminals, junkies, artists, vigilantes, killers and heroes and the ghosts that haunt all indiscriminate, I write this in your blood, for you alone,

I.
I saw you each to each pressed together in a crucible, growing callouses in a garden of fire, fingernails black from digging the harvest of ashes, and when the lord came near you boarded your windows and cocked your guns because you could no longer hold stock in a strangers promise of love, not since your father branded his name into the tender skin of your back and told you, you are only as good as what you own in this country, and by covenant you belong to me now, some nights you still see his face in clouds of smoke when the cold chill of predetermined destiny kisses the back of your neck, other nights you watch the sky and wonder which parts of you will be left when the birds have had their fill

II.
Mercy and desperation,
Concentric circles divided by zero around a sacrificial pyre,
Something here cannot coexist,
Something here has to break to fit,
In longing the martyr dies never knowing what for, and in sacrament he is chewed up and spat out
In longing the basin fills, and in sacrament it breaks to flood the earth
In longing I carve out my insides, and in sacrament they will call me a museum
That is to say, the difference between a museum and a graveyard is a still beating heart

III.
Lear looked among his children and saw only sharpened knives,
Castro looked out over the ocean and saw only crosshairs,
I look out over the city and see only cupped hands,
Our grandfathers could level nations to prove a point and our grandmothers could only cower before men of such rage and power,
Make no mistake, these streets have witnessed genocide and remained passive,
Driving fast down these empty roads after midnight, you can almost make out an apology from the wind,
She says,
You have to understand what it's like to be gutted in appeasement,
You have to understand what it's like to become deadly against your will

IV.
In dreams a vision of Ginsberg, playing chess with his demons on the fifth day of a three day psych ward stay
Vision of Plath setting fire to her own head rather than have its contents laid bare,
Vision of Wolfe watching trains roll by paralyzed by fear of the future and his own hand in it,
Vision of Van Gogh unable to express love in any way other than to destroy himself
Vision of Virginia atop the lighthouse demanding payment for the transgressions against her
Vision of the poet as a saint performing miracles after death, vision of the poet as the archetype of madness realized, vision of the poet as divine mouth and unholy ghost, vision of the poet writing his own obituary and praying for silence

V.
We are blessed with the ability to tear down our monuments when they no longer stand for us,
We are blessed because we can justify anything we destroy
When Jacob's time came they carried him to Canaan and the Lion of Judah went on to fill its stomach with the blood of anything innocent it could sink its teeth in,
I take this to mean that there are some hungers that can only be sated by devouring everything you believe in
But what do I know,
I am a crown without a king
I am not much for devotion
I pick up the pieces of the monuments that once stood here and I sanctify them in hopes that one day this will mean something,
And if that day ever comes,
We will live again inside of something everlasting,
And until then,
I will carry this with me wherever I go
It's the least I can do