There are still lessons to be learned.
His love tightens around her throat,
While his words take stabs to her heart.
Unconditional love makes up for her pain.
She's forgiving.
He's sick.
And I can't take it anymore.
I'm unfamiliar with the art of protecting and defending.
I, too, choke on my words.
As actions speak louder,
She will cry again.
I will give pass her a knowing look.
They will speak redundancy.
How much more can she take?
No more scoffs and oh's
She's the source of my stubbornness.
She's the only beginning I know.
She'll curse me to the pits for thinking like this,
Death can't come any quicker,
To this ugly fat f*cker.

Sometimes
I see a picture.
A picture of a woman
in a kitchen.

Her hair is tied back. But sometimes
it’s not.

Sometimes she winks at me.
A knowing
smile and twitch
of an eyelid.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she’s angry.
Drenched
in the sweat of steamed
broccoli and cauliflower.
Sometimes.


Sometimes she’s cleaning.
Scrubbing her kitchen
spotless. Red tomato
sauce and broken
glasses.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she wilts.
Beside the petunias.
Black
and purple.
Blue
and pink.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she’s spilling.
Water flooding
over the counter
top and stuck
to the clotted drain.
Sometimes.

Sometimes she sees me. Usually
not.  Sometimes she smiles. Usually
not. Sometimes I help her. Usually
not: sometimes.

Where marinated in our murky past
have we found justification for the travesties we do,
build prisons where our prejudice lasts,
and allow its prisoners to fester as they stew

I have felt this heat.
The flame which boils in the toils of others,
whose oils lick embers into wildfire.
And we fall back into the Dark Ages.

where minds who place burden on those with different skin
slink flicking flint to fire, raising from the earth
the walls we have spent decades taking apart one brick at a time.

one brick at a time,
comment by comment,
each passing moment
condone it.
ignore it.

passivity pays the builders of this monument.
who see no wrecking ***** to stop them.
passivity, fills the pockets of the petty
coin by coin collecting courage to speak
outwardly outrageous
slurred hate speech contagious
barbary amounts its fortress from our silence,
one brick at a time.

I have seen the origins of intolerance,
holding together the cinder blocks of utterance
all the moments we should have said something and didn't.
In my selfish silence I see senselessness slip past my snares.
In my hush I hear hate harrow the ventricles of hearts much weaker
than the speaker.

Loathing left untended like
loose mountain snow
will like an avalanche gain strength
in movement.

To you,
the architects of abhorrence
the creators of execration
I plead:  lay down your urban dictionaries.
Know that you lay a foundation
whose structure will build  up,
but whose existence will tear down.

To you,
those who watch the construction
and stare in silence sufferance,
know that although no sweat has fallen,
and no aid has been laid by your hand,
That this malicious monument is as much yours
as it is theirs, through your willingness to watch it go up
one brick at a time.

You cannot hide,
It will find you.
It is not meant to be camouflaged,
Rather avoided by those who claim 
They are innocent.
It is not what you have done or
What you will do;
It is what you failed to prevent.

Their eyes wandered,
Crowding the scene
But I averted
My own
To lend privacy
To the disaster.

Tears ran down her face
And cries were heard
And she muffled them
But the man said curtly,
Keep him crying,
It means he's alive.

What had happened
In an instant
Drew out,
As they stared
And I turned away
Thinking I was helping,
My eyes hardly probing
Like theirs.

But in the end,
I'm not the one
Who uttered reassurances
Or found the doctor.
They did.

These people, whom I know as much as I know me,
As I fill my days with their shiny lives and parades,
But they're not mine,...
Some picture-perfect lies...
There lies mine,...
trampled,
abandoned,
begging to be remembered,
begging to be cared ...
I don't know me,
I don't know my story...
And as I bask in their glory,
The one grasping for help is me,
As I follow them away...
As I walk away from me,
Only with what makes them h a p p y ...
Because it was easy,...
Too easy....

As I never cared for shiny objects.
until I felt I lost mine,
Illumination,
What feels like in a sudden,
There are so many from them,
Those people,
covered in gold and diamonds,
shining away from their high pedestals,
Stunning, ... captivating,...
I sat there in silence,
admiring from afar,
and once in a while when they come down from their higher ground,
I follow them around, --
I follow them around, ...
My existence is a wish of theirs,
wispy and feeble,...
...
There is a beggar on the ground,
begging for a second chance,
trampled and forgotten,
I don't know her,
I don't know her story,
As much as I know these sparkles,
they can't be the same kind...
Boring and uninteresting,...
So I scold at her,
ignored her,
as mine and me alone gasp for my care,...
Too easy...
Because it was too easy...