I'd like to tell you a story
It begins in 1492
When dear old Christopher Columbus
Sailed the ocean blue

He landed on what he thought
To be the country of India
He stumbled upon a group of people
Who appeared to be indigenous

Because these native people
Happened to be where he thought he was
He called them all "Indians"
&& somehow that name stuck

They welcomed his group with open arms
Even offered them their feast
Unaware that deep inside
They were but wolves, dressed as sheep

Columbus && his crew
Soon ravaged the land
They took what they saw
Then they took full command

Of the people they found
On the land where they landed
They felt they should rule
So they stepped in, heavy handed

They murdered the people
Who had taken them in
Set fire to their villages
While the victims watched with their kin

Flash forward to the future
It's now 2016
It's been over 500 years
Since the overtaking by the regime

Future settlers decided
To let the survivors live on
They designated them small areas
Of what had not yet been robbed

These Native Americans,
Generally keep to themselves
They get by living off their land
But now they need your help

The Sioux of Standing Rock
Are being horribly mistreated
The state of North Dakota
Is poisoning them without reason

A pipeline has been built
That runs through this Native territory
When Bismarck residents didn't want it
It was rerouted, how discriminatory

People from all over the country
Are seeming to agree
They are making the commute
To protest peacefully

In defense of an oppressed people
Who only want to live
But the government is stepping in
Even blowing off some limbs

"Let them die, they're not like us"
the message the administration is sending
It seems that after all this time
The battle is never-ending

What exactly does it take
For people to see eye-to-eye?
In the end we're all just human  
We kiss, we laugh, we cry

So if you have a heart at all
If you know that this is wrong
Please join the Sioux in their mission
By coming together, we can be strong

I think I have bed bugs.

And I think they might be trying
To gnaw
Away
A couple layers of skin
To show me what's really concealed
Underneath.
I think they're trying to show
That something has been
Changing.

Sometimes I think I hear earwigs
Scuttle in my hair, at night
Whispering, whispering
Thoughts best left alone, that
I told myself I wouldn't hear
Anymore.

And they tell me
There's spiders
Weaving thoughts in my brain.
Connecting memories
With feelings
That don't rhyme.
"A little torment never
Hurt anyone," the earwigs say
While the spiders are cheating me
Out of a healing sleep.

I could try to squash them;
But I don't think I'm the type.
I guess they win
They can have the bed.

Home is where the heart is
So I guess she doesn't have one.
Circling points on the map
Doesn't get her places.
Only empty drives
And moving on and on.

Running places to hide from mistakes
Accounts for small breaks in changing faces
But doesn't change a thing like
Cutting pages from a book of goodness
And pretending the world is worth being reckless.

But drowning in far flung fears is easy
It's treading stale air that isn't.
Drawing on the same breath for years,
A suffocation, imprisoned.
Stripped of dreaming and stiffened with passing seasons.
Home is where the heart is
So I guess she doesn't have one.

She doesn't remember this place
Or this name, or this face,
Because it all blurs together
Into something so forgettable.
Onto another town
She doesn't care to know
And treating people
As if they're something borrowed.
To keep quiet, and do as they're told
And erode time away for her.

Escape is an exit away, but
Fleeting thoughts keep her chained to the highway,
Riding until the road dries out.
Home is where the heart is
And I wonder if she'll find one.

You are why I stutter through stories

The days where your smiles keep coming
never-ending,
Up-end me.
I earn those split lips and some teeth
Like currency.

leave all your friends behind,
abandonment.
but adamant
leaving was only an accident;
you miss us.
what took you so long?

you keep coming back
and back and back
repeating the past.
i'm growing attached again
mismatched against
your flighty love in the aftermath.

it's funny you say you love us
selling it like a snake oil pitch
but we're the first to feel the itch
of fresh baked blame
branded across our bodies.
you're always on the attack
then falling away from us
a deadly one-two
the back-to-back.

i laughed when you said you missed me:
you didn't stay long enough to mean it.
you leave your mark by
stealing places and people
or else sleeping with them.
it's your trick, it's a staple.
clutching onto numbers, waiting for sequels
but not as good as the first, right?

if playing with the world is what gets you high,
what am i?
what am i?
am i your favourite toy?
am i your favourite

you keep coming back
and back and back
repeating the past.
i'm growing attached again
mismatched against
your flighty love in the aftermath.

don't think of me like that.
a toy, a drug, a god-given fact.
a hit and then a month of silence.
and i wish i could pretend
you weren't coming back.
if you love something, set it free
or at least let me be.

you've stopped coming back
and i've unpacked the past.
like fleeting memories
falling off pages
i've grown attached again.
mismatched against
your flighty love and it's aftermath.

what took me so long?

I am nothing more
Than brittle bones
And a frail heart
Praying
For someone
To make me better

i keep looking at people become serious diarists, like Paulo Coelho writing the alchemist, which can be an odd experience... i've got ants in my pants and i'm a dog's bone away from playing dead, sitting in mantra of: load off visiting Singapore and never getting the hangover joke of Bangkok... sinus gaping pore? it's all ******* feathery anyway... flusters of rouge should fantasy come to life.

learn to cackle, thus said: invoke a magpie, to learn laugher -
ha ha (etc.), as can easily be turned into a cackle,
only magpies cackle and even funnier,
applicability of diacritical markings,
as if stealing letters of silver spoons...
Scōtlānd: meiné skoot,
overt
           lá                           -nd...
spacing for the macron -
          and hence the acute without spacing...
                          truth to the tooth
and elsewhere bone-shattering governing the rattle
of the ribs... a canary's song least that of worth
with a woad's pigmentation...
               or said ivory to turqouise...
azure, and vented in lavender...
           but the cackle came
with *Scōtlānd: learn the linguistic
arithmetic! the macron und umlaut
synonym... if applying it learn it,
if not applying it: learn Bulgarian,
Oristice the peacocking accents...
        turquoise though:
Eurydice... Orestes... synonym of acne...
so few do, in that the diacritical indication
is a higher-tier arithmetic...
            such that the less implied is
governed by the impeding peacock variation
that suggests Da, in all prevailing -isms,
                   as saying raw, to a Tartar
over a horse limb steak galloping toward Ukraine...
         but here we are: adorning tartan
of chequers and navy that mingles blue & purple...
                       and here we are abiding to
the Faroe Isle recluse...   spelled aisle    said
i'll...      and that i dare not wallow in it much further...
haggis neeps and tatties... wanking over
a cow's testicular dangly... truant to all truth...
        and all truth to the truant rodins....
  thus to laugh excessively is to cackle like a magpie,
   and hark a phlegmish soar with the raven...
                and end all tragedies without
a Hebraic definition of ha as
      the: direct article... for good manners suggest
that no clue be justified in cradling the sigma
of either the zenith of the Babylonian tower
or the spiral of condescending might twirling into
an imploding tornado over Egypt and all things
                  extravagantly Pythagorean...
  or as Balaam said: i rode a donkey out of Yerusalem:
sprechen yiddish.            
               three years among them...
  and i can say with much demand: Scōtlānd...
scootlaand...     if i ever learned to cleanse,
i also learned to adapt... a circumstance of thinking
myself adequately counter-inept to share
   the Baltic with Lapland skiers, as synonymous
and congregational in being translated into Ęglish
          for what already is: a truancy when cultural
criticism isn't enough... because the culture makes
one truant from engaging with it... because there
is no culture to be critical of...
                   a hermit foretold and with clasped hands
   gave alms, and later: with a slow clapping
          made hands orate what the tongue made shoelace-
                                                       ­         (op+. -spaghetti)       .