We took upon ourselves this mighty emblem
Swift, strong, clever, admirable
All the traits we boast
For we admire predators
And will never admit weakness, craving help
As the ultimate enemies of our grandparent's did
When there were no more hunters strong enough for us
We hunted ourselves
And looked to this symbol like wingless conspire
Created a feeble facsimile, a mockery
Both predator and prey fly rebelliously
In secret handshakes and public smiles
We convolutedly devoured ourselves

When your tendons began to disintegrate
from the weaves in the told tales
and the luster of polished facades
trembled at your piercing stare
at the silenced waves retracting back
from your shores to the stone tossed
with the vision a visible indivisible shackles
on a mask of tattered, thinning hairs
sullied by fury, cowed by shunning
torn from the host persona, misrepresenting.
That was when you noticed your bare feet in the moonrise.
And I was just returning from my long walk in them shoes.

I suppose this lump of clay is just fine the way it is.
Well, honestly, who am I to try to change it?
I know full well the labor that went into making it
The workforce that mined out the sediments from the soil
The minds that designed that perfect consistency
The psychologists and graphic designers that boggled the package to life
The mouths their incomes feed.
The leftover money spent on beer and records to listen to with friends
Yes, that would be preposterous of me to sully their memory by shifting even a single atom.
I’ll place this lump next to the other lumps limping, exhausted on that dusty shelf.
Their lumpy memories will lump onto me. and I’ll take their non-utilized weight with me wherever I travel.
They are precious. More so than diamonds.
**** it, my niece wants dragons.

wordless extended hands
from those months of moments
treasure maps torn and buried
in soft sand scorched of life
seeds wating for soothing rain
to grow and accept exhalations
and return the breathes fuller
what could be said would never explain fully
it must be sung
vibrations of those learned lessons still echoing
returning as unlearned ones
future is past's mirror
and there are still chasms to explore
a warm hearth waiting to be built
an unmade cabin deep and far in the forest
counting your credit score, looking at the green line patiently
throngs of wanderers looking up to the balcony
the conjunction benefiting more than just those present
love without possession

For sustenance we trudge on
Just to sustain
This callus equilibrium of fragile crystals
swaying in the wind, falling constantly
Employing the cleverest techniques of fleeting upward momentum
Short-lived displays of affection bleeding the small offering received at birth
endlessly replayed to our children's eyes
Despondent indentured servants scribbling through skin and tendons
Just to feed their families the rice they can no longer grow
And sending these fairy tales to the rosy-cheeked offspring of their oppressor's store bought dreams
To keep the oppression alive .
To operate at peak efficiency.
To transfer honest muscle through wire mesh.
And fatten.
And enfeeble
Enforce the prerequisites to match the scale's testimony.
Testify! Oh, Lord. We thank you for this meal stolen from our inferiors.
Please Please Please.
We demand pleasure. IT IS REQUIRED.
For if we feel sadness, then we have failed.
And we'll lay down what we don't have space in our engorged bellies for.
It will be placed, with all due honors, to our greatest shrine.
Where we are honest with our real Mother.
Where the proud, twicely worn, footwear of our warrior-spiritless cows rests
Where erections limp as collapsed towers, respected by false jihads, sleep.
Where dream's plastic refusal composts never; nourishing nothing.
Where potential is pure impotence.
The bed we all share.

I arose from my slumber without sleeping a wink
A twinkle of that dreamstate left over from days of yore
A bore. I must reinsert myself
into the meatgrinder
After lollygagging in that idyllic state
of freedom that doesn't exist
as long as I need money to live, to thrive, to survive
The mountain we slog always
catching the scent of the next tender morsel
of that dream we hardly remember
from the night before
the night before
the last time we awoke
in that place, our best friend held our hand
and took us to that desired land
filled with everything we never had as children
eyes brimming with stars
beyond horizons promised to us in storybooks
detailed tales of heroes who set sails
chasing whales
our own tails
our own tales never matching the patterned struggles
that we could easily overcome
sung and spun
before we were born
by people with common ancestral lines
times required spines now made with increased output
but inferior quality
broken easily in instances easily overcome
or never imagined in the flowing garment of time
ever lengthening to capture these expanding moments
manufactured and sold in greater quantities than before
more bottles to hold the sweat of downtrodden children
and then sold in extreme dilution to people
people who wouldn't seem like people to our grandparents
people who've never earned a single callus
peasants who've never earned a single social faux-pas
and been ostracized from squares masquerading as circles
on halloween only
or maybe other stolen holidays
we are the skeleton holding your obese mass
we are always malnourished, but expected to sustain
we are the marrow creating white blood cells to fight
the new diseases that we gladly pay for
so we can be sick
or just appear so
in our dreams
or was that something I saw on tv?
hard to say sometimes

The only reason I'm alive today.
Is because I fear the afterlife.
Not because it's real.
Not because the prospect of eternal damnation is troublesome.
Not because I disbelieve in eternal bliss either.
But, because what I desire most is nothingness.
Absolute oblivion
No more sensations.
No more lessons.
No more personal perception.
And no one, nothing, can promise this to me.
Atheism is still a belief in this fashion.
Nihilism is vain grasping at disconnectivity
And I am vain in this longing.
That my pain is more unique than anyone else's.
That to share it would only separate me further.
From all of you.
Even that wording is egocentric.
How many of us have built these fortresses around us?
pointed fingers at the mirrors of the world and cried:
OTHERS!