I had the unfortunate privilege of participating in a war
As an immediate life experience
This afforded me the luxury of indifference
While eliminating the sanguine notion of naiveté
Bravo 6 once told me - the only easy day was yesterday

Existing in a constant state of crisis justifies our history of violence
Collectively vindicates informed decisions to use lethal force without tolerance
License to search and destroy hostiles with extreme prejudice
Collateral damage merely an unfortunate expenditure of doing business

This is the merely the price of war
The cost is the bones and broken lives we leave behind as just-cause
When we are redeployed to kick down someone else’s door
Eventually in time, all these sins will follow us home
And war will make corpse of us all

David repented and seventy thousand fell
Jerusalem's execution stayed for God relented
And where the Angel stood the Temple arose
Anti-David hardened and strengthened
The war entrenched and more enemies joined
Captives remained and fires uncontrollably raged
Surely this time it'll be more than three years
And enemies indestructible more wicked shall be
And Jerusalem's destruction, once more, unstayed

as I watch the protests from within
tearing down my streets my people
I have come to love and hate this country all at once
but in times of trouble and pain
the israeli people are my family
I feel my heart breaking all over again
but as well I remember the tears and blood
of the palestianians blood that is still fresh upon
the same land for the past 75 years of terror
see people think that its just the land of israel or palestine
but no its been a land of conflict and pain for a long while
a place where the greatest demons fears and patriarchial patterns
play out
I think that's why its one of the centers of the world
probably the only place.
You can feel the energies burning through seething
I can't explain it
only the ones who feel connected to this place
feel it
its as if the land cries
along with its people
the scorching sun
lights afire
and the people are on fire
for life for good or bad
I know that this place will prevail on
in some way
my place
my israel
my falestine
my middle east.

u think antebellum south usa was a mind game;
a static trip through proto-**** pre-psychedelic
America; she held her hand out to see the creases
that would predict her fortune for generations to
come; her descendants one day will walk through
space the way we used to walk through the mall
before the gas & gunfire; yes, my neighbor is now
my enemy; all we worked for gone w/ the wind

Up, down, turn around
Please don't let me hit the ground
It's to late, you already missed
Feeling like I don't exist
Been laying here in my bed for days
Counting down the ways
Of how to let go, or should I stay
The number count is growing high
Of the many ways to die
The argument to stay is small
Finally at the bottom of the fall
There is no getting up again
I'm to weak within this skin
This hole is deeper than the rest
The walls slick with oil, who would've guessed
Me that's who
There seems to be nothing I can do
Not this time, not by myself
I need some help
But they all ran away, sickened by the sight
Of a twisted corpse still trying to fight
Guess I'll just lay here and try to find some peace
But that will happen after they find it in the Middle East
I'm just tired and can't carry on
So I'll just lay here till I'm gone

I would be the first
Proudly ejected from my desk, with a right hand hovering firmly over my undeveloped left breast
To recite the indoctrinated love for the greatest mirage of an accepted state in the Western hemisphere
It was not until my father's army cries of trauma were disregarded
Because he did not bleed red, white, and
Blue on the battle field
That gravity began taking over my heavy hand
My pockets filled with stone and
My beating heart developed into a sack of realization
That lives lost were not lives that mattered
If those lives were not American

Up, down, turn around
Please don't let me hit the ground
It's to late, you all ready missed
Feeling like I don't exist
Been laying here in my bed for days
Counting down the ways
Of how to let go, or should I stay
The number count is growing high
Of the many ways to die
The argument to stay is small
Finally at the bottom of the fall
There is no getting up again
I'm to weak within this skin
This hole is deeper than the rest
The walls slick with oil, who would've guessed
Me that's who
There seems to be nothing I can do
Not this time, not by myself
I need some help
But they all ran away, sickened by the sight
Of a twisted corpse still trying to fight
Guess I'll just lay here and try to find some peace
But that will happen after they find it in the Middle East
I'm just tired and can't carry on
So I'll just lay here till I'm gone

to the love i fell in across the ocean, i am still drowning in you. -Amman