We are the first generation truly
free - free to create and destroy.
Living on borrowed time, we are
either the end or another beginning.

1.  “Redbone” by Childish Gambino
       *From the album “Awaken My Love!” circa 2016
There is something here of the generations
My mother used to hold me to her chest
And play songs that sounded a lot like this one
A string of notes and a backbeat that could lead a war
That old time sound of a desperately truthful falsetto
Of loves and lusts lost and almost lost

        2. “Ribcage” by Mary Lambert ft Angel Haze
        From the album “Heart on my Sleeve” circa 2014
I’ve always had a penchant for clever lyrics and simile
Self titled Queen of Metaphor circa 2008
This one is a heartbeat, trapped in a cage of craving bone
With vulnerable voices raised in honest harmony
Then comes the rap Angel, spitting psalms of poetic pleas
Desperate to be understood when words work no longer

3. “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T” by Fall Out Boy
From the album “Mania” circa 2017
A love song about holding memories like mists in tight fists
A distance insurmountable between two linked chains
It’s the point where numbness reaches its peak,
But you remember the all consuming wave of emotion
The way a child who has lived their whole life in the desert
Remembers being born at sea

4. “The Good Part” by AJR
From the album “The Click” circa 2017
This is where you are when you’ve reach three fourths completion,
A 2pm existential crisis, an out of body stress headache
A melancholy look back at all you’ve achieved,
A Pride in the journey, when you’ve still got miles before the finish line
Weeks of hard work, all in an unending line,
A tired request to flip to the Happily Ever After

5. “Maybe IDK” by Jon Bellion
From The Album “The Human Condition” circa 2016
This is the finale of an existential nightmare,
The part of dissociation where the world comes back into focus,
When you talk your brain into circles to get back to sense,
This is the sigh of relief when your questions stop spiraling
Like living through a hurricane, hands clasped, eyes closed
Coming outside, and seeing the sun

6. “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads
From the Album “Remain in Light” circa 2005
Finally, the return of your mind, the tingling of overthinking
Come to rest. This is the feeling of everything being “alright”
When you haven’t been alright since two years old. This is
The temporary “back to normal”, the frequently pressed reset,
Button that makes you function again, when you know
Deep down, you’re an iphone four years out of date

When it's not so sad anymore I will show pictures of us to my future children.
I keep them hidden in 7 different folders on my computer to try and hide them from myself so I don't get weak and want to look at the better days.

I deleted you from social media, I blocked you, but as we all know that's a temporary solution to the bigger problem.
I always find love for you even when I hate you deep down inside- hidden under 7 layers of skin and memories.

When it's not so sad anymore I almost wish we would run into each other on the streets.
Maybe it won't be so awkward, I'll have moved on and you'll have moved on but maybe there will be a small spark still there.

When it's not so sad anymore, I will eventually delete those pictures from my memory and my computer.
I will find a way to permanently erase your love one of these days... maybe 7 months from now, maybe 7 years from now... someday.

My net worth is negative 20K,
With interest, that's growing every day.
Now, my starting pay’ll neighbor 60-70k
And though I have no technical skills
My friends find me dull
My talent needs work
I dismiss it all,
Go ahead,
And gas it up full,
Fork over said talent
To a Professor who ignores my attempts at a challenge.
Yes, yes, I’ll manage this round,
Though the hole's designed for a stay,
In debt, forever on the repay.

Now I'm pushing 40,
And the negative has 40 over me.
How'd I lose that bet, so clearly bad?
I thought this here was the recipe:
I'd go to school, get good grades
I’d hit that rice-only diet, labor like a slave
Occasionally crunch a wrap at Taco Bell
(Cause if it ain’t a date, you're saving still)
And while I rant, rage, and rave
I continue to dig.
If this is me caving in
Then these digit-dusted boulders
Are going to crush this twig.

I'm learning to respect my strength
I used to be spiteful of it
As a woman, I am expected to be feminine, distressed, graceful, always right
I am not sure how it came to be but I have not respected the order of things
I have not seen that in this spiteful way I have regarded my willfulness
It has also become my saving grace in times of malcontent
My truth is clear
I am not strong because I am
I am strong because I was made by strong stuff
My mother stubborn, smart, sensual
My father intellect, humor, heart
God
I am not credited for anything that I am
But I am graced with the empowerment of women
That would not be difficult today
I cannot stop fighting even if it's easily given
Because it is a battle not a gift

The worst thing my parents ever taught me
Was to worry what other people thought of me
The worst thing to tell a child with anxiety

At the time I didn't know that it was wrong of me
To accept the burden of responsibility
For strangers who only saw a part of me

I shouldn't have put them before the thought of me
I didn't know it would be the lobotomy
That kept me hiding in my room for 10 long years

I didn't know it would ****** my autonomy
That you can't fake it 'til you make it if your introspection is an autopsy
That you can't **** a part of your soul

With whiskey or with *******
With bleach or box cutters
With street drugs, with a blind eye

Jesus loves all of the little children
And the church loves all its little saints
But when we express our love not with words but with paints

When the checkmark just doesn't fit the box
And our expectations weigh like chains on the children we so claim to love
They are slaves

To the 9 to 5 domestic gods that clash like thunder every night
Too absorbed in their own fight
To see the fear inside your eyes

Slowly wearing down the fire in your soul
With the grit of their need for control
Teaching you how to be the best version of them

The one they didn't have the guts to master on their own
Abandoning the flower children with the starry eyes
They once claimed spoke their deepest truths

Trading in the wild spirit in their currency exchange
For your future
So they can be so comfortable on their thrones
While they forward the blame to a new address

The hordes of walking dead they left behind
Carrying the consequences
Rejecting all the that we were handed

Gaslight me on fire again
So I can shoulder all the hate that tried to smother my spark
Like your right to be comfortable trumps my right to be here

I didn't ask for this
So when you call me by my new name
Remember all the times you tried to tame me

All the times you defamed me
While telling me stories of a God of endless love
You can't take the perfect mess that you've created

And make a masterpiece, because I am one

We are made of star stuff
And I'll be ****** if I deny the perfect love I was promised
just because for once you didn't get what you wanted

My hand has been raised for God knows how long.
I've begun to rest it on the table,
clasp my other hand around it's elbow,
I've wiggled my fingers and waved my arm like a pendulum,
like a live garden hose let loose,
I've widened my eyes and grit my teeth,
I've bleated "Ooh, Ooh!"
I've stamped my feet,
I've thumped by books,
I've wiggled in my chair--
My arm really hurts.

I've watched.

I've watched the world carry on,
I've watched the innocent die,
and the killers acquitted,
I've watched a thousand men and women get shot because of their skin,
I've watched women get ***** behind dumpsters,
I've watched politicians rouse ancient hatreds as a glorification of the past,
I've watched ancient flags wave in the face of the oppressed,
I've watched rivers dry,
and climates change,
I've watched ice caps melt,
I've watched species go extinct,
I've watched people go hungry,
I've watched the homeless sleep behind dumpsters in church parking lots,
I've watched fingers grow cold and fevers run high,
I've watch nuclear missiles get primed,
I've watched television render eyes vacuous,
I've watched schools hinder truths,
I've watched generations pitted against each other,
I've watched terror form a face from someone's mold,
I've watched razorblades grace the wrists of children,
I've watched peers commit suicide.
I've watched my friends die in car crashes,
I've watched women get abortions without consolation,
I've watched churches close their doors on the oppressed,
I've watched police ****** in cold blood,
I've watched logical fallacies become common rhetoric,
I've watched hatred consume a nation,
I've watched people refused marriage,
I've watched ****** orientations become scandalized,
I've watched drugs consume,
I've watched drugs consume greed,
I've watched the miracle cure get tucked away,
I've watched fear grip a nation,
I've watched grocers disappear from checkout lines,
I've watched Kate Gosselin ask to speak to the manager,
I've watched diabetes weaken my father,
I've watched fear grip my mother,
I've watched anxiety grip my sister,
I've watched uncertainty grip my brother,
I've watched depression place a million guns in my mouth
and pressed to my temple,
a million guns,
I've watched a million guns,
some brandished from the beds of pickup trucks
and front porches,
some whose muzzle flashes within churches, schools, movie theaters, night clubs (to be continued),
some gleaming in the tint of sunlight
pouring through the window
as I close my eyes and press the cold barrel to my pulsating temple.
I've watched a million guns,
I've watched a million guns,
I've watched a million reasons to scream and cry,
to lose hope and to pray to die,
I've watched the evangelicals and zealots abandon the Earth and its citizens for the unseen,
leaving us in a premature rapture
to rot in the system they created,

I've watched it all with a single hand raised,
growing more and more numb,
to it all,
but still with a single question on my lips.