#genes
It's genetic
addiction they say.
It's a gene
that you pass down
like a too big shirt.
And it is too big.
the shirt and the addiction
they both swallow you up
your mom suggests you save one for bedtime
you decide it works for both.
And it does work for both.
the shirt is comfy
the dark is a good cover
you wear the one while you do the other
you feel at peace.
And it is peaceful.
the hum on the fridge is the background noise
your headphones broke today
frogs croak and crickets chirp outside
you feel in control.
And you do have it under control.
you don't worry that you need more each time
that you think about it while the sun is up
that you try doing it in the morning
that the shirt is getting bigger
And it is getting bigger.
both of them
you have them on every night
you can barely find your way out of one
let alone the other.
And you can't find the way out of one.
the one you won't say
you will think it all day
you won't say it
you won't say anything
And you never say anything.
What could you say?
When would be a good time?
Could they understand?
Who would you tell?
And you tell no one.
it eats at you
you can see the bites it has taken out of you
the holes in you and your shirt
the shirt you think they'll bury you in
And they do bury you in it.
you don't know that
because you're gone now
you buried yourself in the addiction
and they bury you in the shirt.
Jan 19
Jan 19, 2026 at 3:05 PM UTC
Before my mother learned to talk,
I was already there.
Not ME me, but the beginning of me.
It is not a metaphor.
It is biology.
My grandmother’s body
built my mother’s body
Which built my body.
Science has shown that
inside my mother’s growing body
within my grandmother’s womb
the eggs that would become me
were already forming.
Because when my grandmother
was pregnant with my mother,
she wasn’t carrying one life.
She was sustaining three generations of possibility.
Three bodies in one breath.
Three heartbeats in one body.
It is not a fantasy story,
but a scientific one.
And science says the body remembers.
What my grandmother ate.
How she slept.
What kept her up at night.
Pain she endured.
The love she survived on.
Those things didn’t disappear.
They didn’t stop with her.
They left marks. Not on skin, but on genes.
Maybe that’s why my strength feels deeply-rooted.
Why my resilience isn’t accidental, but inherited.
Women’s bodies pass down more than names.
Our bodies pass down instructions.
How to endure.
How to persist.
How to keep going.
Grandmother to mother to daughter
A womb inside a womb inside a womb.
So when I say I come from strong women,
I didn’t just come from them.
I was once held inside them.
Before I had a voice, and before I was ever born.
Their bodies were already making room for me.
Jan 11
Jan 11, 2026 at 4:58 PM UTC
They always said
How much the little girl
Was like her daddy in
The way she stood
Walked
Movements
Gestures --
Cute when she was small
But the older she gets
The more she takes on
More serious aspects of
My strengths
My weaknesses.
Proud to see her
Strong personality --
Flashbacks of my youth.
Strong-willed
Free in spirit
As a young deer
Kinking up its hind legs
In defiance of constriction.
A free spirit sees
No need for the fences
We build to contain it
To control our so-called
Base instincts.
In her my strengths are
Magnified
but oh
So are my weaknesses --
My weaknesses magnified?!
Looking at this
Living mirror of myself
Seems to
Magnify
Intensify
A normal father/daughter
Relationship.
I think I see clearly because
I think I know myself so well.
I chastise myself
I condemn my weaknesses
The mistakes I made in my youth.
I look down at me
She looks up to me.
They say she is
So much like her daddy
But she is much more.
Part mama
Part gran
Part grandma
A tapestry of traits
All formed in her
Along with what her social
Environments have
Sown in and reaped of her.
The teenager often sees the
Outward beauty of a
Model or movie star.
Someone is always
Better looking
Someone else always
Has more of something.
I try so hard to help her see
That this is so common
A feeling.
She is above all this
She is not run of the mill.
I know she knows this
Somewhere
Deep inside.
Time has proved
That I see more
Than what meets the eye--
But this knowing
Holds possible dangers.
I can see ahead to
Warn her of trouble
But there are troubles
That she must endure.
Over-protection
Every caring parent knows
This pain.
I do not want to fail her
But distance seems to grow
Between us when
I monitor her progress
When I push and ****
To make her less like daddy.
She shouldn’t be too much
Like me --
I have too many regrets.
In the night hours
I sometimes hear sounds
That I cannot distinguish.
I hear fluttering sounds
That I think are birds
Flying out of the trees
But in reality it is the wind
Blowing high
Through the pines.
I see shadows of strangers
Seeking mischief
Shining bright
Lights at the family tent
In the cold
Half-dream-state
Of the cold night--
But reality says it is
The distortion of the campfire
Through the fabric of the tent.
I cannot always distinguish
Certain sights and sounds
At certain times
But time reveals what
They truly are.
But to bite the tongue
When I wish to scold
Out of season!
To stop focusing on our
Likenesses to the point
Where I cannot differentiate
Between what she used to be
And what I used to feel
And the individual soul
That my daughter is!
They always say how
much she is like her daddy.
Maybe daddy needs to change.
Nov 19, 2024
Nov 19, 2024 at 8:39 AM UTC
I get so high
I look up past the sky
I look back down
and I wonder why
I'm somewhere in between
I'm almost in a dream
monsters make me laugh
angels make me scream
I get so low
nowhere down to go
I look back up
and I just don't know
whether I will defy
what is right before my eyes
devils wear a path
angels wear a disguise
Apr 11, 2022
Apr 11, 2022 at 9:04 AM UTC
in the eyes of a reflection
shattered by things that are unseen
eyes aren't polarized to see beyond other eyes
shining water looks up at me
I see myself and beyond the surface
aquatic life isn't hiding behind other guise?
in the glass of the shattering
I see myself as that broken image
a war was fought. but no war was won
shining sky looks down on me
you handed me a broken mirror
then you said "look what he has done"
Oct 29, 2021
Oct 29, 2021 at 3:56 PM UTC
Listen if you please
to my twisted soliloquy
I’m not from around here
I’m just rumors on a breeze
I come from afar
some say the mountains
others the stars
like an absent friend
you will remember me I promise
or else your names Thomas
mine is Adam the first
I am the atoms that burst
the very fabric of being
the fabric of genes
denim, denial, destiny, defile
I've been here a while
and I will be here a while longer
even though I don't belong here
the oceans don't know my depths
the mountains have not reached my peaks
all these beliefs I have not kept
for there is something greater that I seek
but I cannot utter its name
some may call it love
but that has garnered too much fame
for you've mistook love for what is fake
because it's not something you can take
it's as simple as a breeze
the same that carried me
yet unlike I it has no needs
it's as full as the oceans
and tall as the mountains
I had the notion
that I could just pen
write my own legend
but that too must END
Sep 6, 2020
Sep 6, 2020 at 5:15 PM UTC
for Thomas Raine Crowe
...These nights bring dreams of Cherokee shamans
whose names are bright verbs and impacted dark nouns,
whose memories are indictments of my pallid flesh...
and I hear, as from a great distance,
the cries tortured from their guileless lips, proclaiming
the nature of my mutation.
NOTE: My “mutation” is that my family appears to contain English, Scottish, German and Cherokee blood, meaning that my ancestors were probably at war with each other. Did my English ancestors force my Cherokee ancestors to walk the Trail of Tears?
I have recently created these new translations of Native American poems, proverbs and sayings ...
What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of a winter buffalo.
The shadow scooting across the grass that vanishes with sunset.
—Blackfoot saying, translation by Michael R. Burch
Speak less thunder, wield more lightning. — Apache proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
The more we wonder, the more we understand. — Arapaho proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Adults talk, children whine. — Blackfoot proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Don’t be afraid to cry: it will lessen your sorrow. — Hopi proverb
One foot in the boat, one foot in the canoe, and you end up in the river. — Tuscarora proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Our enemy's weakness increases our strength. — Cherokee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
We will be remembered tomorrow by the tracks we leave today. — Dakota proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
No sound's as eloquent as a rattlesnake's tail. — Navajo saying, translation by Michael R. Burch
The heart is our first teacher. — Cheyenne proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Dreams beget success. — Maricopa proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Knowledge interprets the past, wisdom foresees the future. — Lumbee proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
The troublemaker's way is thorny. — Umpqua proverb, translation by Michael R. Burch
Feb 22, 2020
Feb 22, 2020 at 6:33 AM UTC
How many burdens do you carry? How many have you passed through your kin? How much of your burden is not yours to carry?
I have struggled with these questions.
What burdens are mine? My shoulders are weakened by these unanswered questions.
I know that maybe this is just family tradition, I was given them at birth. Yet, I did not pick them. I would like to know why I have inherited them. Have my brother have them? Does my sister struggle with similar questions?
What if I did not care to nurture them anymore?
Would they die with me?
Or still be gifted to my kin?
And if they were given to my kin, how would my kin feel?
Would they bare it like Atlas, strap it to their backs and lift with their knees?
Or never speak of it. Hide it in a locket around their neck, neatly tucked under their shirts.
Would they take time to calculate their percentage of the age old burden? Or bury it somewhere in the country, deep into the side of a mountain, with the rest of the ancestors.
I’d hope they would give the burden back to the rightful owners.
I hope with all my being left, they are mighty enough to confront the age old tradition. I hope they give each burden back, to each dead being in the grave.
I am weary of carrying the ancient decisions of my elders.
I wish you luck, my child.
The size of the burden does not determine its weight.
It is heavy.
It has nearly buried me with its ominous weight.
I now understand why the burden is so easily passed without a second thought.
I just hope my guilt does not add to its weight.
Dec 30, 2019
Dec 30, 2019 at 6:47 PM UTC
And...it's here. A future. Agile? I was not enough to be.
Black in it's entirety. A new beginning and a new me.
Clockwork. As though a plan hatched by some supreme being.
Dear dog, which came first? Was it the white or the black?
Either way, it effortlessly taints your profoundly glorious genes.
**** this! Atrocious. Drugs?!
Goodness me. How did we get to this?
Horrible, dehumanising, and it's here to stay.
"It suppresses". But really only in the mildest of ways.
Just to remind you of the control you once had.
Killed! And now ceded in it's entirety to a tad bit of a fad.
Let me just turn back the hands of time!
My fate I leave with you alone.
Nothing seems to relieve this pressure and irreparable pain.
Oh God! Could I be spared such a destiny?
Prayers.
Queuing from my heart to yours.
Respectfully admonishing your power and grace.
Simply, do I ask for that childlike sense of serenity.
To take me to a place of restoration and hope.
Unlock my mind. Repair my soul. For vaults of this kind are too strong.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 9:22 AM UTC
Armies of words gather in my head
To march so boldly onto the page.
They work their wonders
Who knows how?
Why they pick me as their channel
For their landing craft
I’ll never know.
Some accident of birth:
Genetic fluke –
For which I take no credit –
Makes me nectar to these ants
That line themselves into verse.
Compulsion drives me to write
As salmon must jump those water falls
To return to their spawning grounds.
I have to speak, or rather type:
Express myself
No matter what,
Whether good or bad.
Is there a cure for this affliction of mine?
Can I ever stop myself from writing?
I very much doubt it.
Paul Butters
© PB 16\11\2018.
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
To come from the line of a man who tamed the snakes
Gazed into the fire
And breathed life into wombs of women
Dying to be the shell
Broke down plants till they became medicine
Healed the hands he touched,
And what am I but a vessel of his life,
A broken one?
His blood must have ran right through me
Like the monotony of a lecture
In one ear and out the other
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 2:53 PM UTC
What have we evolved to be?
Genes and phenes are all I see.
I view traits where genetic flood gates make one look like another,
Where mothers have their mother's eyes
And smiles alike their brothers.
Nov 17, 2017
Nov 17, 2017 at 6:10 AM UTC
Who Am I…©
Am I a biological cocktail
Of atoms and genes
A being of enlightenment
From another cosmos
A melding of time and experiences
Twisted into a known identity
A confluence of memories
That will one day fade into thin air
A figment of my imagination
Or yours
A spiritual being going through a human existence
“We are human beings, not human doings.
Every once in a while we need to stop and smell the roses,
Hear what is really being said, taste the essence of life,
Touch someone’s heart and see life for what it truly is,
A journey with rest areas.”
Andreas Simic©
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 6:49 AM UTC
Relatively;
They’re traced back to your hand.
Where the lakes meet the palatial forests,
Ensconced by a foreign land,
Ink stains, summer ice cream, soccer matches.
They spell what raised you from the ground.
Farther;
They pull you to the motherland.
Whispering to you in unfamiliar characters,
On a train across the vast verdant terrain,
Reliving the arduous lives of your predecessors.
You are a product of cold animosity and two rivals.
Oct 9, 2017
Oct 9, 2017 at 12:13 AM UTC
I told myself if I became you
I'd sooner **** myself than live that way
But here I am, evaluating my decisions
And they're disgustingly representative of my genetics
The pull in my heart gets heavier
As I wait out each slow-passing day
To see when I'll have the courage
To finally say **** it and pull the trigger
Sep 1, 2017
Sep 1, 2017 at 5:30 AM UTC
They Call It Heresy,
We Call It Genuine Science
We designed the genes' primers,
Ordered them along the oligomers.
Our aim is an elaborate one,
It involves molecular cloning,
Sequence characterization, and
Relative expression analysis of
Bovine Trefoil Factors.
Now we hope to clone the gene,
The gene which is of a bovine origin,
By extensive working hours input,
And bearing in mind the risks,
Of not getting the desired output,
The possibility of failure always therein,
But pregnancy, healing & immunity it's governing.
Three types of trefoil factors there are,
TFF1: It suppresses gastric carcinoma,
And also helps in pregnancy,
TFF2: Helps exclusively in cancer research,
TFF3: Helps exclusively in pregnancy maintenance,
And also our prime interest.
After cloning the genes,
We have to sequence them,
And after characterization,
We have to analyse them,
After relative expression.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 12:40 PM UTC
This is the legacy
pain and misery
carve my effigy
plight of synchronicity
they dwelled here before
but I’m breaking out
Here’s the line they drew
I will cut it soon.
Jun 20, 2016
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC
i thought
i was more his
than my mother's
as he shouted at me
as i shouted
to him
lost
behind angry.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 4:51 PM UTC
Interconnecting my genes into the Universe
So that every single thing is me.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 4:21 PM UTC