Artificial hums lit the wasted brilliance of hand picked history
and carved out the bells that burned through every blinded skull
and marketed the body to a stranger's choice
and drowned in the ecstasy of a makeshift American dream
and repented of their mandated sins
as the city gems burned electric
devouring the unwashed eyes of a lover believed dead
catatonic to the bloodied river water
graying to the hums of an innocence they sold

My father told me they were starving out there
It wasn’t until now I knew what for