"SIR! How do we silence anxiety? Sir."

Welcome to the new era,
A-dread-alized Motivation

We Swept concrete
under bombshelter rugs

Wept skyscraper scaffolding
Twin tears down construction worker cheekbones.
Dangling off plywood
Staring at their lunchmeat
In silliphane
Placing it back
Closing their eyes

The sun rise past the construction
Shone red and yellow
Orange and black
War in the winds

We all knew that there could be only one thing to silence the Trembling fingers
still left shaking
from the resurrection
of our ancesters sins.

The uncertainty of our nationalism,
or ability to breathe. A tragedy
to bond us. Glued
to the severance of anxiety horizens.
"The New Era"
Stapled to the door frame.

Green now in the sky
They painted the missiles gold
so we'd know who sent them.

Waves came
Tore cartilage from the floor boards.
Fires came
Swept veins up in the smoke
a plague would have come,  
but the world glazed over with laughter.

labeled allergies a
coping mechanism
in the face of cataclysm
We swore at each other
Didn't blame god.
For once

This time we didn't want to curse
gods name that way.
Not when we knew our aggressor

The rich had bombshelter elbows
The beautiful had lips like
plane tickets

You stand accused of revolution
Influence,
motivation, rebellion!
PAYING ATTENTION
What do you have to say for yourself?

Says Judge Judy.
to the artists.
All of them.

Shackled in front of ovens,
Brothers and Sisters of rainbow skin

Motivators aren't needed when you're "Silencing Anxiety" She says.

A general in the white house asks:
"They're all too loud.
How do we unleash genocide
for a whole generation?"
And this *******,
Gaunt in the corner?
Says suicide.

“If you play baseball, you’re gay.” he said with a stupid grin on his face.
And that time, I had had enough.
I told him, “Shut up, I am tired of hearing you say that.”
For this wasn’t his first time using gay as an insult.
I should have said more.

I should have told him that to him, it’s just a word,
But to those of the homosexual community, it is demeaning.
The fact that our society has become alright with allowing a term that defines something life changing like one’s ****** orientation as a term of slander means one thing.

Our dictionary is out of date.

Our dictionary is out of date because words like gay, ***, queer, and ****** are common practice
We let these words flow from our mouths like a river that has broken through a dam.
They are ceaseless, coming forth without an end in sight.
But they are just words, right?
Stick and stones, right?

Wrong.

It is true that sticks and stones break bones, but not so much that names will never hurt anyone.
Because they do.

They may not hurt you or me, but you and I have thick skin, our skin is armor clad.
But not all were fortunate enough to get a such an impenetrable epidermal layer.
Some only received paper to cover the flesh and bones they call a body.

So you may say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,”
but to those with paper skin, they have never had sticks or stones cut so deep as words have.
A stick can not scar your soul, a stone can not ******* your self image.
But words can affect someone for life.

I know this is true because I know teenagers who it has happened to.
I know a girl who is one of the most beautiful young women I have seen
But she believes otherwise because inspite of my telling her so
She has been a victim hiding in the bombshelter of insults for far too long
Without makeup she does not feel pretty, when she is sick she wants no one to see her face.
She has become a statistic in a society that thinks sticks and stones is a one-size-fits-all policy.




Or what about all of the men, women, and children who take their own lives every day?
Or even the one’s who take their paper skin and shred it with a razor blade?
Try telling them that names will never hurt them, try telling them that they don’t need to do what they do
Try telling them that they are beautiful.
Because I can almost guarantee you that they will tell you
“You’re wrong”