I would love
for just one day
to wake up
and turn on the news
to see smiles
celebrating the wonders
of the human being.
The brilliance
of all that we accomplish;
of smiles;
of love;
of happiness;
of all the wonderful things
that people do every day.
But if I had never left my house
and had only seen life
for what they show us
then I’d never want to leave
the house
at all.

As I watch the news
And witness the hate
I enter the death zone
My being
And
My body
Slowly die
As if I am in an
Extreme environment.

How did you end up with the bad news
why are you the one asked to die
why not that guy...
the one too fat to fit in his car
or that one
who loves just his phone

You, who loved the world
who found joy in new bloom
who waited for the monsoon
why have you...
been asked to exit stage left

you are beauty we need
and yet you are all packed up
who will find us a birdsong
or count the stars again

perhaps this is how a play ends
or this is how the lights go out.

I don't think people realize how fragile it all is
how it just falls apart when you're looking out of the window at something else
at first you don't realize because it happens bit by bit
you'll get used to it

the culture war looms
it pulls out your skirt on fridays
take me out please
take me where the boys are
you know you want to
it tugs at your sleeves saying
oh you didn't hear what they said about you?
flag wars they sing

truth is a preference
it's true if it feels right
if it doesn't well
it's fake news of course

oh you didn't know non-player character
will you play to win?
because feelings don't care about your facts

you see I was born in 83
in the newly formed islamic republic of iran
three years into the trench warfare that changed the psyche of a nation forever
high on the islamic revolution
full of fury
blood and soil
blood and soil
the hors d'oeuvres of the war
we fled in 88 three months before the war ended
nothing gained nothing fulfilled

I see the absolute worst in people
I watch them and learn much from what they get outraged by and what they don't
it all starts small rooted in a search for meaning a sense of purpose
once this is defined just watch them turn on each other
the other essentially

war needs a dragon
war needs young men to believe
the culture war has always been there
like a monster’s nails casting an ominous shadow
behind the bedroom door tapping away at your mother's vinyl flooring

when people get safe
with fear at bay the tapping dims
but when an immigrant stabs an infidel
or a black man is apparently murdered on video
the tapping gets louder
what is the dream of the foreigner hoping to penetrate the walls of the golden city
to weaken it?
from the russian bot to the isis video slicing brody's neck right before your eyes
it gets at you doesn't it?
doesn't he look like you?
your white knuckles are shaking
yes yes the monster says
I will draw you in

because I'm just a monster living in the hallway
and I'm nothing without you
is what he'll never ever tell you

but it's true
he aims to exaggerate the divisions within your family
to exploit it
to challenge your identity
to play with your emotions
as you've done to them
so you know this game very well
you just don't know the side of the table that will
as in the iran-iraq war both the us and the uk sold arms to both sides
the great game

War is profitable and the opportunity to cash in on it is tempting
people don't have ideas
ideas have people
how fragile at all is

this very society that I cherish that I sought refuge in
my family
the vast base
the stable economy
common law
democracy
if life started in the east
then the reason to be of the west is to carry on the torch
to learn from past mistakes and to be a light unto the world
until our very toes are inching at the pacific with no further to go
will I find myself staring at the window pondering what happened
like so many countless men throughout history have?

how fragile at all this
we won't know until it's taken from us
not by the formless foreigner but by our own very hand that opens the bedroom door
to experience our darkest insides that grows and grows endlessly
until we have nothing else
the monster in the bed now
in all that cold
and all that dark

Solicited news runs on a treadmill,
and drips from the mug reading
Captured in Words
full of things i don’t want to know,
another ******, another corrupt business,
another hate crime, another attack,
another school shooting, another ****,
another another another another another
It’s a loop i want to cancel out with my bluetooth headphones
while glaring at the world making assumptions
on my appearance.
Listening to the only music that makes me feel heard,
that makes the hungry, the crying, the insane feel
heard.
Can’t you hear me? The screams echoing around the empty
walls fabricated by your enthusiasm for |||||||||||||| Cages.
When i find the sanity i crave, you label it childish,
that i find hope in a face on the screen
what is wrong with you that you must also take away
what i cannot give myself?
Feed into the lies, feed into the apathy,
fed up with the screams and the silence,
you ask where i stand?

i lay on a path riddled with thorns
under a scorching, searing light
but i am not allowed to die

and you ask,
why i see a bleak future
or none at all.

Under the dust of the boots
and the wagons of the troops:
the woodlice

moaning, bruised and maimed
by the weight on their peace
The war appeared out of the sky

bombed women and children
destroyed the houses and even the roads
You watch it online

not dressed yet
knowing it is real
and you put the coffee away

to let yourself go
in a few tears of impotence
and practical objections

It's too much trouble
to get into action here
and now in your time off

If you close your eyes
you feel the distance
and you are finished