Imagine you've been tortured,
ridiculed, hated by the masses.
As you bleed to death on top of a hill,
another tortured soul asks you
for forgiveness for his sins.
The man did nothing to you,
but he feels the need to confess.
Writhing in pain, you want to die,
if only to end your own torment.
But instead, you listen to the man,
and you grant him your truest love, forgiveness.
You tell him he will soon be in paradise
with you, and you ******* mean it.
That's why some of us have faith
and we fight for the poor,
the marginalized, the despised.
They can **** us, as they so often do,
but they will never win.

The bosses always tell us
not to take their decisions personal.
When they hold the pay raises
we need for gas and shoes,
that cash stolen from our families
becomes quite personal.
When we gotta wait two more weeks
to pay the electric bill,
or when we pretend canned pasta
tastes like chicken with sauce,
that's ******* personal.
When the knife or the gun
feels just right in our hands,
that's personal too.

I lived with my grandparents
as a boy before kindergarten.
My grandfather, a union boilermaker,
always left for the job early in the morning before I woke.
In the evenings, pap would stumble through
the back door, covered in soot, exhausted.
Sometimes I'd run up to him and hug his leg,
a sign of appreciation, true love.
Pap always laughed in delight at the affection
and then he’d pat my back in approval.

As I clung to pap’s ***** work pants,
the sharp smell of burnt metal filled my world.
It was the scent of the Rust Belt
that often hung in the air around the steel mills
and so many manufacturing centers.
That familiar smell reflected the gritty region,
its culture of hard day labor and heavy Sunday dinners,
the only way of life we understood.

Fifteen years later, sitting together
on pap’s back porch next to his stack of books,
his retirement library, the metallic scent was gone,
along with the steel mills and the rail yards.
‘I miss that smell,’ I said.
Pap kind of frowned and rolled his eyes
in that way when we hear the young and naive
speak without wisdom or experience.
‘I don’t,’ he said.

Standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street
during a lunch break at the job,
a long funeral procession drove through the intersection.
The hearse and the limousine appeared washed,
they shined under the winter sun.
The other cars were older, filthy from salt
and road dirt. No one had time
for car washes when their friend or relative
lay dead in a box.

Most of the cars in the endless line
were driven by young men, their jaws clenched,
and their eyes focused straight on the road ahead.
Young women sat in some of the passenger seats,
their eyes puffy and red
as their attention roamed the city.

Eventually the cars stopped.
One sedan was stuck in the middle of the intersection,
driven by an older man, alone.
His eyes met mine, but he stared through me.
I removed my hat and bowed my head,
a gesture in a world we can’t understand
or hope to control.

The procession began to move forward.
Before he drove forward,
the man formed a slight smile
under his tortured eyes.
In those few seconds, he and I mourned
together, without names or histories.
It didn’t really matter.

At night, The fresh sweat
that rolls down succulent *******,
the *****, bourbon, and wine
that pours down guilty throats,
and good tobacco smoke
that hovers below the lights,
all of it carries the scent
of animal passions
released into the wild.

In the morning, those same smells
grow old, stale, out of favor.
Betrayal replaces desire
as ***** replaces the splendor of *****.
The reality of regret
that stares at us through bloodshot eyes
forever replaces another slice
of innocence.

A young woman stands on the sidewalk
in front of a vape shop.
Her long red hair is the dream
of desperate men
that flutters in the cool spring breeze.
She fiddles with her smartphone,
her thumb quickly scrolls screens
in an attempt to fight boredom.
She's waiting, waiting, waiting
for her next adventure,
but those skin tight yoga pants
and her filthy sneakers tell me
she has a long wait.

In the most ferocious winter storms,
there are people of honor
who will share their gloves.
During times of war,
some children continue to dream.
When famine strikes,
old men find the will
to be generous.
In a mall parking lot,
drivers will ram you to death
for a spot ten feet closer
to the door.