You take there pride, there roar,
what goar..
      You take there skin and get some win?
take that shot,
oh whatta sin
there sold just bought.
that thaught must rot..
there little cubs chopped down to nubs,
oh why oh why,
you'd join there clubs   You take the time.
to aim for gone,
good by nature, Sorrow spirit, they so wrong
last lion song..

little red,
you are here
to make it better
for everyone.
that is your purpose.
you are to make things
better
for your family
for other people
to make things
just a little easier
and if you are good
and kind
and nice
and fake
with a smile
cast
in plaster
maybe someday
someone will make it better for you
in return.
this is a cheerful fact,
little red.
why aren't you
smiling?
hasn't the
chalky water
and paper
dried
yet?
hmm...we might have to
reapply

I am a traveling salesman
and in my travels I have
sold many a thing
in middle class America,
I sold debt, love, lies,
wasted youth, and forgotten dreams
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

My travels brought me to
the south of the Rio Grande.
Disease and poverty were
on the first of my list of things
to sell.  Soon, heartbreak, hate,
tyranny, and fleeing for a future
followed,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I traveled to the east, the
exact opposite of where humanity
once tread.  I sold many things there
to people none the wiser.
Racism, genocide, and intolerance
I removed from my bag, and they
received tyranny and fanaticism
for free,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I fled to the north to sell my goods.
The land of former kings provided
a great market for distrust, poverty,
and eventual declines from the great
history the land once knew.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

So I went to the last place of my sales
the not-quite-Far East.  And there I found
the best market for civil wars, censorship,
arms sales, rebellions, and most of all,
potential.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

And so I fled this world to sell to another
and in my travels, I sold the world
to things leading to destruction.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

At twenty seven I drove much more
recklessly than my eighteen year old
self would ever have done
my husband says I stopped singing
around twenty three
the words that would careen out of my mouth
like his little songbird
made beautiful from years of practise and
patience
slowly dimmed and then eventually altogether
faded as the notes I sang were
replaced by cigarettes in my mouth
and headaches from the shift of high school choir
to my career as a technician

At twenty seven, all my dreams
of activism had fled
when I was eighteen I swore to change
the world, but at twenty seven I
could only stare at my sister's family
and wish I had taken one up of my own.

At twenty seven, the smiles and laughter
had fled from my face, despite
being fully visible in every picture of me
at age eighteen.

At twenty seven, I had grown up.
At eighteen, I was still young.