family shouldn't
shame - because
shame lumbers in the belly like a bad ham -
it burns into intestines and spills
hot green stomach acid up your throat while
you're asleep peacefully at the television -
no, family shouldn't
point fingers like a winter's frost, scowling
like a midnight alley cat between trashcans -
no - family
reflects in the
social mirror, and breaks
itself down first

is it freedom
to give away what's mine?
I taste the air, in the wind
and you, in my mind - I wonder, if
to forget today, will I wish away the light - ?
then until I turn blind - and numb - and why -
we run
I'm innocent - I
I didn't see it coming - I
I just let it happen -
I didn't plan on going out tonight
and then you came over after -
is it freedom
to give away what's yours - ?
cold handcuffs and red wine -
You're guilty - You
pretended you knew you were coming - You
You just let it happen -
You didn't plan on this tonight
but you just wanted action -
Tradition.
Free to do, free to please
What's free to you, it's what sets me free
and I don't need what I don't have and
I won't be a victim of this greed -
She hasn't called, I haven't either
and I still wonder what she thinks of me -

My heart goes out to the man
on the side of the road
My mind, goes out to the soul
who refused to open his hands
To a man, he'll never know
My stomach turns
Like dusty blade swells the smoke in the room -
I open doorways without knowing what's behind them

we used to bask in the warmth
we once drank from pure bodies of water
until the parasites came
and I stopped wanting to sleep at night

I don't know what is going on -
Maybe it's the trap music.
That led to the twerking. No,
it's got to be Snap, the Google -
I see the ghosts of history around me -
Symbols of righteousness - hatred
mirrors facing mirrors - the voices -
I face the light in hopes of an answer -
I turn away and forget for I know one not come -
I breathe in the static -
I smile at the cameras -
Run.

I rode a horse
and I built the pyramids -
and I sweat under suns,
and I hid in shadows in fear of it -
I've touched grass, lush
in pathways in bloom -
I've exhaled the hatred, a fist raised
against neighbor, and brushed
my teeth with shattered glass, learning
to become someone new -
I see the stars, the chances I exist
more than a witness -
I am more than a witness -
I am more than a witness watching
a comet fall across the purple-green summer sky -

i am the dust
that emerges from
the crack in the Earth
when the plates shift
and the chasms orange and clay and
the rivers that ran, have run dry
the trees bear no fruit
and there's a dead-ness in her eyes -
i haven't seen a sunrise
i've never watched a sunset
i can see the tides, rise
but believe it hasn't begun yet