I don't know what wrong have I done
To deserve so much pain
Always, have I been kind
Yet, have I lost a few friends
Suffered, have I, a rather painful divorce
My marriage was a total farce
However, not at all was I at fault
Never, did I deserve so much hurt!

I don't know what wrong have I done
To be taken for granted by a woman
Whom I loved a lot
She cared for me not one bit
Though she turned out to be an amazing actress
Who pretended to be in great distress
And milked me for all was I worth
Really, was she the worst!!

I don't know what wrong have I done
To be so rudely cut off by a woman
Who always called me her best friend
Never did I think our long relationship would end
In such a brutal manner
Especially considering was I always good to her
How dare she take advantage of my autism
***** her and her Brahminical egoism!!

I don't know what wrong have I done
To be rejected by almost everyone
On a variety of dating apps
Sometimes I feel I am being treated like a corpse
What qualities do I lack?
Why do some people only look at my mistakes
And not the good things have I done?
Seriously, with India, am I done!!

I don't know what wrong have I done
But I am not going to be taken for granted again
***** all of you, thanks to whom I have suffered
There may be a time when YOU suffer
I will laugh at you then
Truly, never again, am I going to be taken for a ride
Because Jesus is on my side
Amen!!

Where is your Ok line?
Lay upon the asphalt of your tender life?

Does this line fall straight or
Wander like a rivers ebb?

Does your OK line look away from Native children of America forced to give up their language with a safety pin in their tongue?

Or does your voice remain silent, letting white paint on black dictate another's worth but your very own, into the hands of righteous power.

Does your OK line follow blindly with conformity from false prophets who seek to control your mind making it easy for you to turn away from suffering?

My OK line seeks for equality, self-determination, and soothing suffering
With my voice and pictures that will never be silenced in a democracy but will be sold to the highest bidder in a dictatorship.

How silence kills and you suffer less believing you are somehow more disserving. You are as equal as the stone stuck in the sole of your shoe.

Remember the discomfort is equal for all. That's the OK line. We are equal; stone, thorn, blade and heart. Bleed, but bleed less in company of a powerless generation who votes the OK line towards freedom of choice. None will be free from our last breath.

The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight ...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember ...
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh,

our soft cries, like regret

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.



Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water —
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night ...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter ...
So near, yet so far.



Bound
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.

Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.

Published as “Why Did I Go?” in my high school journal the Lantern in 1976. I have made slight changes here and there, but the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.



And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
by Michael R. Burch

1.
"Where's my daughter?"

"Get on your knees, get on your knees!"

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

2.
where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails
when thunder howls
when hailstones scream
when winter scowls
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?

Four-year-old Dae'Anna Reynolds, nicknamed Dae Dae, loves fireworks; we can see her holding a "Family Pack" on the Fourth of July; the accompanying Facebook blurb burbles, "Anything to see her happy." But perhaps Dae Dae won’t appreciate fireworks nearly as much in the future, or "Independence" Day either.

Diamond Lavish Reynolds, Dae Dae’s mother, will remain "preternaturally calm" during the coming encounter with the cops, or at least until the very end.

Philando Divall Castile, cafeteria manager at a Montessori magnet school, was "famous for trading fist bumps with the kids and slipping them extra Graham crackers." Never convicted of a serious crime, he was done in by a broken tail light. Or was it his “wide-set nose” that made him look like a robbery suspect? Or was it racism, or perhaps just blind—and blinding—fear?

Lavish, Dae Dae and Castile went from picnicking in the park early on the evening of the Fourth, in an "all-American idyll" celebrating freedom, to the opposite extreme: being denied the simple freedom to live and pursue happiness. Over a broken tail light and/or a suspiciously broad nose.

Castile can be seen sitting on a park bench. Dae Dae and a friend are "running happily across the grass." Lavish, wearing an American flag top, exclaims, "Happy Fourth, everybody! Put the guns down, let these babies enjoy these fireworks!" Odd to have to put guns down to celebrate a holiday. Only in America, land of the free and the home of the brave?

3.
where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
when the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow
where does the butterfly go?

... Now the cop’s gun is drawn in earnest, four shots ring out, Castile slumps over in his seat, a "gaping bullet hole in his arm," the vivid red blood seeping "across the chest of his white T-shirt." The cop continues to point his pistol into the car. His voice is "panicky."

"****!"

The same curse a Baton Rouge police officer screamed after shooting another black man in a similar incident.

"He was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him!"

"Ma'am just keep your hands where they are!"

"I will sir, no worries."

"****!"

"I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand open."

"You told him to get out his ID, sir, and his driver's license."

Little Dae Dae, sitting in the back seat, watches it all unfold. So praiseworthy when confronting the unthinkable, she seeks to console her mother, her voice "tender and reassuring" in marked contrast to the cop’s screams.

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

4.
and where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?

"Oh my God, please don't tell me he's dead! Please don't tell me my boyfriend went like that!"

"Keep your hands where they are, please!"

Suddenly so polite, perhaps sensing some sort of mistake?

"Yes, I will, sir. I'll keep my hands where they are."

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

5.
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

More cops appear on the scene.

"Get the female passenger out!"

"Ma'am exit the car right now, with your hands up. Exit now."

"Keep 'em up, keep 'em up! Face away from me and walk backward! Keep walking!"

"Where's my daughter? You got my daughter?"

"Get on your knees! Get on your knees!"

"It's okay, Mommy, I'm right here with you."

6.
Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable and void.

Something uncapturable is gone—
gone with the spent leaves and illuminations of autumn,
scattered into a haze with the faint rustle of parched grass
and remembrance.

Something unforgettable is past—
blown from a glimmer into nothingness, or less,
and finality has swept into a corner where it lies
in dust and cobwebs and silence.

"Ma'am, you're just being detained for now, until we get this straightened out, OK!"

By now the cops realize the severity of the situation and Castile's injuries, which will result in his death within twenty minutes of the shooting.

"****! ****! ****! ****! ****!"

"Please don't tell me my boyfriend's gone! He don't deserve this! Please, he's a good man. He works for St. Paul Public Schools. He doesn't have a record of anything. He's never been in jail, anything. He's not a gang member, anything."

Lavish begins praying aloud: "Allow him to be still here with us, with me … Please Lord, wrap your arms around him … Please make sure that he's OK, he's breathing … Just spare him, please. You know we are innocent people, Lord … We are innocent. My four-year-old can tell you about it."

Lavish asks one of the cops if she can retrieve her phone.

"It's right there, on the floor."

"****! It has to be processed."

The cop speaks to Dae Dae, who has started heading back to the car.

"Can you just stand right there, sweetie?"

"No, I want to get my mommy's purse."

"I'll take care of that for you, OK? Can you just stand right there for me?"

The cops continue to treat Lavish as a suspect. She later said that the cops "treated me like a criminal ... like it was my fault."

"Can you just search her?"

Mother addresses daughter tenderly: "Come here, Dae Dae."

"Mommy…"

"Don't be scared."

Lavish informs Facebook Live: "My daughter just witnessed this."

She tips the phone's camera to the side window of the squad car: "That's the police officer over there that did it. I can't really do **** because they got me handcuffed."

"It's OK, mommy."

"I can't believe they just did this!"

Lavish cries out, sounding "trapped, grief-torn." Dae Dae speaks again, "mighty with love," a child whose "quiet magnificence" commands us to also rise to the occasion.

"It's okay, I'm right here with you."

7.
And a little child shall lead them.

Amen

NOTE: The quoted parts of this poem were taken from a blow-by-blow account of the incident, "The Bravest Little Girl in the World," written by Michael Daly and published by The Daily Beast.

Keywords/Tags: effects, memory, memories, remember, regret, moonlight, erase

everyone will die
no one wants to until they realize that life is prison
and in death they are free-
they are like orphans, taken in with kindness
unaware of their caretaker
[who they are,
what they want from them-]
when death is your foster parent,
his abuse isn’t forthright-
it’s like I learned in kindergarten
“how do you boil a frog?”
“slowly increasing the heat over a long  period of time.”
relax too long in his hot spring
and death may make a meal out of your naivety-

it’s only human;

when you are tortured days upon days
you ask for the bitter gall to hasten your death;
and life can be torturous to many
as everyday we are crushed by a millstone:
the weight of the rotting bodies
of children who took their parents gun
put it into their mouths
thinking they could swallow bullets,
leaving pieces of their skull
as little gifts to those that are left behind-

we are crushed by the purposeless, repetitive work load-
we form addictions just to cope with the lack of sleep
lack of energy
lack of love
lack of connection
and lack of intuition that we are forced to experience-

i was always told
“get used to doing the same thing and never changing
because it doesn’t end in school
it continues every day
until you finally get to pass away
with those who love you surrounding your side.”
oh death can’t be the only reward in this life!
no wonder why we can’t ever lose infatuation with killing ourselves,
“it all has to be better-
something has to be better-
anything could be better
than what we live in”-

I’ve found that the grass is never greener on the other side of the wall
it’s just sometimes taller
or shorter
or has some different plants growing inside
but the color only changes with the seasons
and we will all experience rainfall and drought
even God says that “it shall rain on the just and the unjust.”
so I move forward
remembering that “i have learned the secret
of being content
in any and every situation
whether well fed or hungry, whether living
in plenty or in want.”
and I cling to this verse as a  stronghold in my faith-

we will all see hell rain down in this earth
and many will weep as the blood and bones are crushed
and the skin is melted away
and also when the spirit is divided from the soul,
but there are still many who will not be concerned with
this or that
or the troubles of the day
and like nurses
they will stomach the stench of decay
and the sight of blood
and they will rush to aid those weeping
and comfort the broken,
picking up the pieces,
helping to fix their shattered complexion,
and will not take the bitter gall
but endure suffering-
and in suffering
we will find true freedom-
becoming like Christ
like lambs to the slaughter
and we will see our reward.

She was a little star in your fabulous night sky,
You are the brightest full moon.
She never wanted to be in the center
She always wanted to be a little dust that mattered
But, you turned to that star  and she shone as if she was the center of the universe
The little star was ecstatic and her life was suddenly meaningful!

And one day just like that, you turned away…
To the other side, leaving a dark sky
There are always many more stars in your world
Something else became the centre of your universe.

She waited and waited…
But only to realise that you would never turn back,
She never understood the waxing waning and the seasons of you.
Your night sky is spectacular as always.
The tiny little star went behind the clouds,
No one noticed, least of all, you.

The little star hides behind the cloud
For she could not bear to be just another star in your world.
She watches the splendour and grandeur of your night as you carry on
But could never find confidence to come out in to your sky
And she trembles watching her worst fears come true..
Never able to forget the love that existed in your eyes for her.
The dance continues…
She is now a dust that merely exists but not seen.

a false promise of freedom to a captured man,
just like a cup of poison, filled up to the brim.
a note between the stones of all the walls we've built
and all all the walls they tore down just to fight again.
it's nothing like the light that breaks a peaceful dawn,
it's painted in the colours of a foreign flag.
and everything that burns takes us a lifetime back,
and everyone who died was not meant to be born.
acceptance isn't earned, it's but a weapon drawn
and aimed at those who dare to overstep the line.
a shattered cup of poison for a senseless crime
filled up by blood of every prisoner of war.

nearly five years old
my nephew plays
with a stethoscope
a fully functioning
auscultatory device
not just some toy
of unavailing plastic
and purposeless rubber
lost to his imagination
he holds the chest piece
against my sternum
the diaphragm cold
even through my shirt
making me pull away
momentarily
out of instinct or habit
even though
it is not needed
he sits listening
concentration tight
across his brow
with very real concern
as he informs me
that he can't hear anything
that i must just have
no heart at all

knowing full well
the pain it causes
and the knowledge
that it will only
make it worse
i still bite
and pick and pull
at that jagged edge
of my finger nail;
more often than not
the finger is left
bleeding and aches
for so long after

Could we convince our scars
That the world isn't sharp,
That it means no harm?