Does your brain ever falter.
Not when I was young.
Are you treading hot water.
Not unless I'm dumb.
Do you know how to live
Living some fake lie.
Do you know how to be
no I pray to die.

DO you want survival
I'd rather not
DO you want revival
I'd rather rot
Do you want to come back
Not from this
Do you need anything
Drug induced bliss.

Does your brain ever falter
Not when I'm sleeping
Did you ever want a father
Only when dreaming
Did you ever think
not ******* once.
Did you ever live
no i never had the guts.

How does it feel to be free?
Maybe unlike birds who fly high in the sky,
people can only feel free when they die.

Below the hanging tree I wept
Remembering the past.
There was a secret I still kept
Or – it kept me aghast.
A secret so ingrained in me,
An ache, a pain so deep,
A nightmare all day long for years
I could not fall asleep.

Beside the hanging tree I crept
My world – a shrunken hiss…
That fateful night I found the cure
Was in the air I kissed.

Beneath the hanging tree I dreamt
Of stranger things to come.
But all my dreams were swiftly swept
With shafts of morning sun.

Behind the hanging tree I stepped
And took the leap of faith.
And now I know you are to come
To this most sacred place.

The memory of ones we lost
Will never fade away
And neither will our love for them –
Not for a single day.

We might seem peaceful, fair enough,
But we have shown our teeth.
When freedom cried and duty called
We chose to clench our fists.

With every step along the way,
With every drop of blood
We learnt there was a price to pay.
We hardened our hearts.

With every cut and every bruise
And every shot we took
Our numbers grew, so long the queues
That everywhere you looked
You’d see the mothers and the sons,
The daughters and the dads,
Their fiery eyes, their daring hearts,
Their disregard for death.

With every blast and every hit
And every shrapnel piece,
The hopes went high, the dreams grew big –
Our dreams of lasting peace.

But first there was a war to win,
An ego to submit,
Old gods to cast aside for good
And fears to defeat.

A score of scores to be paid off,
A destiny to meet,
Old shackles to be shaken off,
A brave new world to greet.

And long and hard the battle went,
The toll is still unknown…
But to this day we reap the fruit
Of seeds of love we’ve sown.
…
And now, around the hanging tree
We join our hands
As we recall what made us free,
What brought peace to our lands.

I smile as I linger on –
A minute, maybe five
As I recall the war we fought,
The sacrifice, the lives.

I weep no more, so wild and free,
And all I ask of thee:
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?

"Would you like your groceries
bagged in paper or plastic?
will you be paying with paper,
Or plastic?"

Rock paper scissors
has been replaced
With something
more rudimentary
But essentially,
Neither have intentionality.

No matter how far you try to move
away from synthetic
you're still drinking out of plastic
eating out of plastic
driving, walking, buying, *******
out mounds of it.
You put your plastic in plastic,
leave it outside
until a man swings by
throws it into a pit
with all the other wasted ****
to exist
for all eternity.

Would you rather melt or burn?
Bankruptcy is a hard lesson to learn
But the ashes of this economy have been
Touted as prosperity
Instead of resigned to an urn
To relearn the transparency
of democracy
As it should be.

I'll trade my plastic smile
For a fistful of paper
I'll exchange it for something physical,
Something bigger
Something somehow better,
Sans the improvement.
The reanimation of the market
Capitalism! Ah,
The dream land.
“Build your monopoly
Crush your enemy”

Oops I mean your neighbor
They're all the same
in this day and age.
Community has been sold
for pennies on the dollar.
Now we’re fighting tooth and nail
To be the one
wearing the shock collar

Bzzzt!
I have the most likes on my photo
Bzzzzt
This minor annoyance
has become my addiction.
I’m shopping and sharing
And living within this tiny television.

This is post apocalyptic
You just can't see it
Because you're living in it.
Things are better, yes
But 6.7% of Americans are diagnosably,
incurably depressed.
37% are oppressed
44%  are over stressed and
81% are in debt.

Let me just say this now
From my white-privilege-podium
That keeps all adverse effects
Of free speech
From touching me

****
YOUR
AMERICA.

**** this corporate greed
that grinds itself down
and repackages itself into
“The American Dream”.

and **** us, right?
For thinking anything here was free.

She reflects radiance
When her heart bled sorrow
She is the epitome of brilliance
Though her insides felt hollow

She appears to be calm
In the midst of all storms
Though her mind rapidly races
And anxiety swarms

She knows the solutions
To the problems I share
Though her own life in pieces
Was more than she could bear

She extends a loving smile
To everyone she greets
Though love once rejected her
And she lived with defeat

She holds on to hope
In times of despair
Though struggle was endless
And no one seemed to care

She weaves her story
Through intricate lace
And embraces each moment
With beauty and grace

Riding high on crests
Whispers hidden 'neath the waves,
Our desire to drown

Why don’t you see
that
it was never meant to be?
Why don’t you understand
that
he’ll never see
you on your knees,
he’ll never hear
your silent pleas.