My skeleton is just a bone dry cage
That's trapping all of this expanding universe that is me,
Bursting at the seams.

I wonder if some kind of big bang or supernova destruction could unleash the power that I feel burning in my soul.

What meteors do I have to smash to create something as amazing and awe inspiring as shooting stars?

Do all artists suffer this way?

I just want to explode and create my own entire galaxy
And leave a mark so admirable you can't ignore my beautiful choas.  

Whether I am a star or a volcano or a geyser I will find a way to let it out and I'm going to be as inexcusable as a natural disaster.

Domestic destruction
Detonation
Dehumanization
People are breathing their last breaths
But we will call it
civilian casualty

Bullets ringing like bells through the air
Bones cracking like the whips we have "long since" retired

A terrorist without the skin tone
Or the turban
Is called
troubled

We keep the death toll
Like keeping score

Pointing fingers
But never at home team

The flag is colored
Red with our blood
White like our pride
And blue like our sorrow

And you boo when people kneel
Seeing them pushed down by the weight of the injustices we perpetuate
****** you off

Because people died for that flag
Like the unnamed slaves-turned-soldiers
Who never had a choice when bullets littered their backs
Dying for a country they didn't ask to be in

The taking knees
Doesn't honor that proud history
It doesn't fit the status quo
The picture of
America the brave
And home of the free(d)

The freedom of speech
Our favorite card to play
Until someone has something important to say

So build the wall ten feet higher

We gave children dreams
now we ship back the dreamers
To a land they never dreamt of

Ten feet higher

We shot unarmed kids in the back
Blaming the bullet
Not the blue who pulled the trigger

Ten feet higher

We marched with swastikas held high
Alt right
Neo ****
No, sorry
White Pride

Ten feet higher

Add a foot for every black life that didn't matter enough
Add a foot for every white ****** that walked free
Add a foot for every family ripped apart
Add a foot for every terrorist that came from inside this country
Add a foot for every hate crime left unnoticed
Add a foot for every transgender person who can no longer serve
Add a foot for every injustice that will never be addressed
Add a foot for every life we could've saved in Puerto Rico

Red with blood
The flag is red with the blood we wiped from our hands.

Be aware
Be angry

That constant desire to escape is the air I breathe,
Flowing down my throat,
A waterfall of despair turning into pools that fill my lungs.

Trickling until I am overfilled,
Vomiting the fear and choking on it.
Swallowing with a burn so fierce I'd rather not take another inhale.

I try to dive in pretending that the water is relaxing,
but really I am just sinking instead of swimming.
My mind an anchor.

My thoughts are seeping out of my pores, creating blood in the water attracting more and more sharks that circle and . . .
circle.

Fleshy pieces floating away.
Biting off parts of me one at a time.
Doesn't matter,

I was gonna drown anyway.

When the world has exhausted me from continuously unresolved misunderstandings,
I retreat back to the inner workings of my mind and soul.

Trying to accept that even though I wish to settle inside of strangers
That I am just not a being to be comprehended.

I must be just a ghost.
Barely visible,
A sound in the background,
A closing door,
A whisper in the room.

Making you wonder if you really heard something or was it just your imagination?

I must be a superstition.

I continue to pass through them, trying to reach a soul,
but I am not even on the same plain of existence as you.