This is for the cell phone renegades
Those who use post its like grenades

This is for the average mavericks
Those who live in defiance of cruel cliques

This is for the subway gladiators
Those who live love over hate even in an elevator

This is for the commuter warriors
Those who ignore the bigots and barriers

To all of you out there , wherever you are
Let's create a better world, both near and far

I hope that the
Bread
Tastes good,
Because I’ve left my
Bones
In “it.”

I’ve left the bones born
Man
And bones born
Woman,
Bones once a baby
And bones now broken,
Bones bitter,
Bones bled,
And soon bits baked
Only by dust,
In “it.”

I hope that it
All
Tastes great,
Because we’ve all chained our
Souls
To “it;”

And “it” will continue to feast,
Come the hours we’d ‘ever starve,
“It” will continue to oppress
And until we say “no!”
So say, "NO!"

She marched forward
In her feline gait
Four ears laid back
Wings slightly unfurling
Tail curling and relaxing like a wave
As she shone beneath the moonlight and cameras
Dark skin and white curls making her seem like a star in her own right
Like those reflected in her sterling pupils

And, before the crowd
Of militaresi and the police
She raised her head to the skies
And sung in the manner
That a wolf howls
Or a jay chirps:
Without cessation
Letting her spirit out
Moving as the song dictated
Not giving a **** that she
(Given that she lyricized for two hours)
Looked like a madwoman
As she sung
About love and heartbreak
About loyalty and betrayal
About friends and enemies
Nature and nurture
Justice and crime
Monsters and men

She sung with no era
No race
No species
No planet
She sung as a person
Dangerously close to the edge
The same place she had been all of her life

And when she stopped
The universe was dead silent
With awe and confusion
As she slipped into the sea
Of a slave revolt

I know that I look different,
But here’s the paradox you see-
Maybe I don’t seem like me to you,
But I seem more like me to me.

"We are dealing with oppressors who, while standing on our necks, will label us the aggressors if we spit blood upon their boots."

It is a strange feeling, wanting to die but not being selfish enough to **** yourself. It is not a good feeling and it is not a bad feeling. Just strange. Like wanting to step out of a moving vehicle but the door is locked, and you're the one who locked it.

It's liberating, in a sense. To sever those stringy limbs that are clutching on to life and all its irrelevant attachments. Unbinded by society. The friendly release of death, all the familiarities of living still in tact. Immortality stolen directly from the suicide note. Shot through the heart, but still very much full of life.

Some pathetic hermaphrodite of irony and despair.

I think it stems from this futile awareness of a futile existence. I could live with a futile existence, but by some divine cosmic punishment am forced to be aware of my place within society. My place being an insignificant cell in a cell. And no body cares about a single cell within it. If one cell dies, it won't even notice it's gone, but simply continue as it was. But I refuse to give it the power to ignore my death. To stay alive is rebellion. To love and to live, in spite of life, is pure anarchy.

the invisible hand is in my pocket
pilfering everything
and there's nothing i can do
to stop it from robbing me blind

it does not guide it only destroys
personal expression under the
whims of an outmoded model of economics
capitalism
a philosophy that subscribes
to the metaphysical conclusion
that a spiritual malady
plagues every human heart
a harsh chorus that rings like a melody
of triumph in the multi-million dollar
mansions of the 1%

convinced we're born selfish
it seeks to reward us for our own malpractice
an edict predicated on social darwinism
that forestalls the possibility of future charity
as it drowns in the throes
of misanthropy and butchers any hope
of philanthropic community or basic humanity
to vanquish our more maleficent impulses

relegated to paying taxes
to ensure the illusion of security
while our money finances endless
war and police brutality rather than
healthcare or education
they know if they keep us sick and dumb
they can get away with ******

if the population shirks in horror
from the looming specter of terrorism
they can justify ubiquitous surveillance
that robs us of our right to
self-determination but
people should not be afraid of their governments
governments should be afraid of their people

they say we can't be trusted
that this is for our own good
but i'll call their bluff that
bull on Wall St. is full of ****
and like a matador i'll entice it to
lower its horns and charge
when itsjust a hairsbreadth away
i'll turn to one side and let it skewer
the slave-driver raising his whip behind me
that same skulking shadow that turns
veterans into homeless wanderers begging
for loose change in Central Park
a pale horse haunting the aspirations
of college students it
leaves the poor and
oppressed shivering after dark and
overburdens broken backs
god doesn't hold up the world
like Atlas we shoulder the globe

now watch us shift the weight

brought down by the people you tried to suppress
this is not some petty expression of vengeance
but the rallying cry of a dream deferred
exploding out to meet your injustice
mark my words

we're taking over the world

we had been mopping
the kitchen floor all day
and the dirt never
stopped coming back

and earlier we had sprayed
the entire front porch
down with the garden hose
and now it was still wet
which made it feel as if
it had recently rained when in fact
the grass was a crunchy
brown carpet of regrets.

the night before we had
drunk orange smoothies
laced with lime and something
aged sleek and dark

(i think it must have been
the reason we couldn't
sleep that night
lay awake in my parents bed
and i told you why i
wouldn't go swimming
until the sun rose
the dog barked
the birds screamed
their morning songs
and my body stopped its
nightly spasms of fear.)

and the next evening
we put on a miranda lambert song
(the one we drank to
in your mother's van last winter)
sat on the wet
porch swing
and cracked open
our first beers

they were
really bad
i gagged
because it tasted
like carbonated
banana bread with
too much stale
baking soda
and we poured half of them
into the flower beds

the next morning
was sunday
and we had milk and muffins
in the kitchen with
simon and garfunkel
then went back out to the porch
drank iced coffee in the
eleven o'clock sunlight
and you said
"if this were a normal sunday
i would have been up at six
at church by eight
and done teaching my first
sunday school class by ten."

(is beer as much
of an acquired taste
as coffee is?
because i can't ever
remember not liking it
i used to think it was
bitter but i always
liked it anyway.)

i didn't say anything
because i didn't want to
say what was on the tip
of my tongue
that this kind of sunday
had become my normalcy
and our variety of saturday night
no longer felt like underage
drinking and more like
the way i was meant to be.