Tiny necklace locket
resting on a rock
it
gleams in the sun
next to necks that met a gun.

I wonder why they left
they
left my soul bereft
of the dreams I wish to hold
oh, the story's growing cold.

They were dreams!
My dreams!
Whose do you think they were?
I was the one with all the youth.
You put your hopes on my shoulders,
didn't you?
So why did you leave me?!
It's not my fault I forgot the
dreams...

The colors run from my face
and twist and turn
down
down
the drain
leaving stains that
I wish
were the mark that I'd be
satisfied with leaving on the world,
but
no one appreciates a colorful drain.

Even when the end of your life
is a paradise
does that justify the hell you've been through!
Don't you wake up
in the heat of summer
sweating
and wish the nightmares would just pour out, too!
Why is it that the biggest fish,
in the nets of our minds
are the angler fish and the puffer fish?
Terrifying and poisonous.
Rancid and unappetizing, because we leave them
out in the sun
afraid to touch our own dysfunction!

What justice is this?
My father wasn't father enough!
Why did he sleep all day?
When he died, didn't I already know he was dead?
Did I experience a déjà vu no more feeling than it was a jagged knife?
Am I dead too?
Is that why I think this is hell?
Is that why I wondered if there are souls? The confusion borne by still being flesh and blood, yet being so ghostly that I couldn't scratch the itch of my bleeding soul.

Justice? If you cry inside, does anyone hear you scream?
Can you?
Only when it's too late.
The last drop of the blood of your soul spent.
Mortgages! Taxes! Insurance! Loans! Employment!
Yes, please, they're all a merciless enjoyment!
A ceaseless tickling of agonizing fun.

What choice do we have?
The choice to tell those who tell you, to tell those to tell that person,  and on and on that it's enough!
We're tired of being told money is life-blood.
Why should my ability to live be based on how much dead tree you've been siphoning from the life of the planet I am worth? Am I a resource?
I'm sure that's in your audit, isn't it?

Citizen #11899382280 is complaining again, send him back for conditioning. Advertise some more bacon and send him to the hospital again so he's distracted, this will distract his whole family. We'll advertise a specific hospital he should go to to them so they feel compelled. When he's at that specific hospital, we'll shorten his life as our insurance. His family will think he's graying because of the stress of the heart attack, but it's really the drugs, which always look the same, yet are increasingly more destructive. We'll send Lawyer #448322783 in to talk about his retirement and will. The family has requested him, but Lawyer #448322783 works for us. Lawyer #448322783 will edit the will to suit our intentions. Once the will is arranged, we will increase the life-shortening medication, which will, in and of itself cause complications. We will introduce a catalyst to forego the critical time we have to avoid his otherwise impending and damaging insubordination. When Citizen #11899382280 is dead, we will retrieve the damaging and insubordinate files from his HelloPoetry.com account and erase his existence. Were he alive, he would find this poem ironic that his emotions, being a matter of the heart, led to a death that was a matter of the heart.

From the heart,
Your loving government & your ****** life