Cages
They say they’re not cages
But they’re cages
People wrapped in shiny blankets
They look like they’re getting ready to get cooked
Anything but
It’s **** cold in there
No sleep
Only cold and concrete
Shivering so much I wouldn’t be surprised if their teeth shot out of their mouth

These lives
These stories
These people treated like dogs

Separated at the border
A child cries
“Mama, mama!”
But the machine can’t hear you
The industrial capital neo liberal machine
It can’t hear you
It says to you, “you’re not human, little thing”

But I can hear this child
I can feel in body the wrongs being done to it
I just don’t understand it
But I want to

I want to understand how people can separate a child from its Father
Brother
Sister
mother
Don’t you know we’re humans?
Don’t you know we hurt
We cry
We laugh
We love

My brother just left my house
It sure is interesting to have a relationship with someone your entire lifetime
And more interesting is how that relationship changes over time
At first we didn’t get along too well
He was the baby until I came along 11 years later
He didn’t like that I think
Used to pull my pants down and hit me
hit me with the belt
Saying all the while that my mom and dad spoiled me
Letting me get away with everything
So he took it upon himself to dish out some justice
Revenge
Revenge for me being born

All the way through my childhood and into adolescence
It was like this
But you know
I didn’t see it like that at the time
It wasn’t until later
Looking back at my life did I realized that I was abused
Physically
Mentally
By my older brother

The hardest part about it was that I loved him
And yet he would do that to me
I suppose that hurt me the most as a child

The abuse finally culminated with me having a mental breakdown
That day I had ditched school with my girlfriend
My brother found me with her at my friends house
Takes me home and starts threatening me
Hitting me
I was terrified
And so I lost it
I was fifteen years old

The psychologist
The tests
The interviews
More tests

My mom almost admitted me to a group home
But my dad said no
Bring his *** back home he said

The surprise drug test
With the guy looking at my **** while I give a sample

And then the day came  when my brother and I fought
Me seventeen and him twenty eight
Throwing him off of me
To the ground
I jumped on him and punched him in the face
Over and over again

Now
Some thirty years later
Now that both of us are grown men
None of that really matters
Today my brother and I
We’re friends

Once sickness
Disease
Sets in
Thoughts of the future become lost
Erased by pain
Suffering
And the thought of death

One must keep their eyes to the ground
See what is right in front of them
I suppose that’s why everyone is scared
Corona virus
Everyone so scared of a virus named after a beer
Corona
Crown

It stalks in the night
Silent
It looks for those in the daylight
It causes people to buy gallons upon gallons of water
Toilet paper
Food
so much food you get sick just thinking about eating it all

People have become the enemy
Friends
Family
Bringing death with them when they enter a room

Possible death lingers in the air
On my skin
Or on a doorknob
Yes you
I am afraid of you
The one who will take me away
My son away
My daughter
My wife

Burn them
**** them
Take them away from me
But what I’m really saying is
Burn me
**** me
Take me away from you

This will not end well
Some will only have their memories to cling to
Pictures of the dead
Others will live in torment
Why did I go there
Why didn’t I stay home

One thing is for sure
The worst is let to come

Toilet paper
Toilet paper
My kingdom for toilet paper
People around here are treating toilet paper as if it were gold
You would think people couldn’t function without it
Like suddenly they would forgot how to speak
Or eat
Or ****

This virus has got people scared
Me
I’m so much scared
I’m just well aware of my ignorance
I have no idea what is going to happen
But I don’t think there is going to be Armageddon
Many people around here do

Food aisles are bare
Paper products all gone
Water
Frozen foods
Canned foods
Chips
Gone like they never were
Leaving behind an empty feeling of anticipation
Ominous and looming

There isn’t a bullet to spare in the whole **** city
Every place is sold out
Walmart
Dickeys
All the guns shops
All those **** right wing crazies
Who god and guns make are great combination
They’re scared the most
In makes sense though
Once you’re conditioned to fear
It’s easy to swap one fear for another

There is that little voice in me that says
They may be right
It might be Armageddon
But then I think that’s *******
Why be afraid?
That’s too debilitating
Rather
Be aware
Be fit and strong
Be ready at all times
I can’t control what might happen
But I can control me
What I do

I am aware that my family needs to eat
So we need food
We have food
My gun is loaded with plenty of ammo
Now, I’m no gun nut
I’m just sensible
I bought the **** thing last year
On credit
My wife was ******

Along with the gun I also purchased 500 rounds of ammo
So I’m good in that department
I don’t have to worry about some starving homeless guy busting down the front door
Raiding the bathroom first
Using my toilet paper to wipe his *** for the first time in a week
It could happen

I just hope I don’t get it
I’ve smoked a little **** these last few weeks
Lungs could be compromised
I’m not thinking so much for myself
It’s for my children
My wife would get over it
But my kids
It would hit them hard
My death would create an everlasting experience
Felt at all times
During every part of their entire life
They would be defined by it
So, lets not die just yet
For their sake

I had a friend
No
I had a brother
Met him when I was about six or seven years old
And at this moment
I can say
That without a doubt
He is the most unluckiest ******* I ever met

Once we were walking in the playground
Him and another friend
We’re walking side by side
A bird flies over us
And ***** on my friend
That was my friend
My brother Alan
The unluckiest ******* I ever knew

His mother died of cancer when my friend was just two years old
Man what that would do to a child I can only imagine
Things like that
Like those kinds of experiences
They shape people's lives
And so it was for my friend
That for the rest of his life
His mother’s death haunted him
In some unsettling way

From an early age
He started abusing drugs
I know because I abused drugs with him
But drugs
for my friend
would go on to ruin his life
like so many addicts

When he was twenty five
His father died
Left him roughly a million dollars
At the time of his father’s death
He was addicted to ****
That drug took him for such a ride
He stopped communicating with the outside world
Cut everyone off
Family
friends
everyone
For months
No one could get a hold of him
Nothing
Someone had called the sheriff's out to the house
He wouldn’t open the door
There was nothing no one could do to get a hold of this guy
Until one day I decided that was it
I went to his house
Broke in through the garage window in broad daylight
The garage smelled like **** and something dead

The backdoor opens
And there he is
Standing there
Disheveled
Unshaven
unclean
Standing with this queer look on his face
What are you doing he asks me
I’ve come to see if you’re alive *******
What the ****

Inside the house
Inside the house was nothing like I had ever seen
There was trash everywhere
In almost every single place there was trash
All along the floorboards
throughout the kitchen
dining room
Living room
Trash on top of the dining room table
Fast food boxes
Bags
Wrappers crumpled up with days old melted cheese still clinging to it
Grease stained pizza boxes
The little Chinese take out boxes
The tiny metal handles showing signs of rust
And in the middle of the living room was the biggest heap trash I ever saw
with wads and wads of toilet paper
All of over the floor
An entire mound of it
The the product of endless nights of watching ****

I sat down
He offered me a beer
Little while later we smoked a bowl
I asked him why he wasn’t returning my calls
He tells me he’s been meaning to call me
And that was it
I pressed him no more
I didn’t know it then
But I know it now
I didn’t press the matter because my friend was suffering
He was suffering
A person living the way he was living
Addicted to ****
Disconnected from everyone
Family
Friends
Everyone except the drug dealer
That’s someone who’s suffering
And again a little of his mother followed him here

We talked of other times
Times like the present
Getting high
Drunk
And then that one instance that breaks the silence like none other
All the calm in the air
Gone
Like the wind was knocked out of the room
A knock at the door
We looked at each other
And then those words that one ever wants to hear

It’s the police, open up

*******
We look at each other
Did you call the police he asks me
No
Again a knock and the command
Alan walks to the door and opens it
Two police officers were standing there
A man and a women officer
They ask to come in
They say someone called of a break in
And that’s when everyone looks at me
I tell them I broke in
That it was me
That I broke it to see if he was alright

The woman officer walked around the living
She was visibly disturbed
She asks Alan how he could live like this
He doesn’t answer
The other officer began a kind of lecture
Alan just stood there
Nodding his head

Hey buddy, you can’t stop talking to people
You see your friend here
He cares about you

About that time there was another knock at the door
It’s the repo man
A man wearing a three piece suit
He’s come to get the truck parked in the garage
There hasn’t been a payment on it in months
Alan hands him the keys
He looks at me
Not mean or angry
But pleading for my help
Or maybe God
I don’t know

I stood there and watched this transpire
Watched the repo man drive off with the truck
Watched the officers leave
And then I watched my friend sit in his chair
Crying with his face buried in his hands
I’m sorry Alan
I don’t know how many times of said those words in my life
Too many I think

And that was my friend
All his life
Just like that
The most unluckiest ******* I ever knew