my legs are twitching with the need to run

to chase a moment, a year,

a lifetime that’s slipping away.

my hands are numb, fingertips brushing

working on autopilot,

following the logic

of things that need to be done

before anything can happen.

my body,

it’s exploding.

waves crashing inside me

yearning, urging, and tearing

at my stationary being,

at my hollow bones attached to tried muscle

and tired skin.

psychologically imploding

with the need to live

and breathe

and do.

experience.

but i’m trapped in this prison of a cultureless culture

in these shackles of people, zombified,

telling me what i can and can’t be

bound to the ground

by the word no;

darling you can’t,

darling you’re too young,

darling you’re trapped,

darling you can’t leave,

darling, you’re stuck.

and with my lips aflame,

trying to release my need to be,

when i simply can’t be,

not yet.

my body, it’s rotting.

twiddling my thumbs,

until life is allowed to start.

Amidst dust beds and filth,
puddles a cultureless poor
about hovers a circle;
mist of fragrant Lure.

Did you see the children in grave washed masses.
Going to their regurgitate-*******-white middle classes.
At the altar bent over in prayer
Giving it up to father almighty
With their false sincerity, and moral ******* gripping ever so tightly
To cultureless social constructs.
Encouraged under thinly veiling drapes
To discriminate, in-tolerate, and perpetuate hate.
Did you see the bravado, pomp, and gilded age?
As it passed by sixty million in their chains of rage.
While authority figures in houses of might
Turned the cheek, cocked the gun, closed their eyes and set their sights.
I wish I could say
This is talk of former days.
But sadly this will to indoctrinate
Others minds into a foggy haze
Of superstitious dogma
Where messiahs are no more than profits, and missions to save souls
Are only to serve strategic end goals.
Is not history
It is today.

In class today Luis read his story
it blew us all away
a tale about an old man
living in a LA barrio
who used to believe in change
used to march for a cause
It got everyone right in the heart
and in the hearts of all their ancestors
The story was so full of culture
that even us whities felt it
That's when it hit
when I realized why my writing
never grabs people on such a deep level
I have no culture, I'm a jumble of whiteness
too far removed from Europe to have
any trace of my forefathers
I have no customary meals
I have no language diversity
no traditions at all really
Except smoking **** in the suburbs
and snorting coke in bathrooms
it's meaningless
and the culture I think I have is stolen
appropriated
My roots have been torn out
of whatever snow covered ground
they once belonged to
I feel empty, I feel like part of nothing
and Luis' ******* writing
made me feel like part of something
that I'm really not even close to
I loved it
I hated it
I wanted to rip it to bits
I wanted to read it ten times in a row
He made me want to give up
He made me hang my head in shame
I got home and put flame
to my last short story
I'm a cultureless swine
I'm boring
I'm boring
I'm
boring

Disappearing like a wounded dog to die
puking up your insides while
smiling, smiling gracing ground with coping mechanisms rendered absolute
like a redneck barbeque, cultureless culture
both choking you mute

Getting high, casually mentioning suicide
like some necessity of existence,
last January she died last January
it happens.

All victims of circumstantially internal
trajectory outcomes,
statistical sadness-
yet
I cry,
With tears your experience dies
And becomes mine.

I think I figured out my health woes
and mental ones to boot
It's salt rinses until I can leave it to the tooth extraction professionals
Why is it so difficult for me to make the phone call
Do I still fear I'll be yelled at like I was child?

I want parental validation to ward off these unknown strangers
but I've been getting to know - for 10 years now
I'm smarter than my folks at home
The horror

The trick is to have the childhood faith you once had in them
in yourself - and in everyone else when you're not there
"These idiots will get along just fine. Why can't I?"

I'll make the tough phone calls
Post vulnerable pictures and songs
Deep down, do I just want a partner again?
Dog sitting alone
If I was trapped in my childhood home for a weekend
with some gregarious girl opposite of me
I would be a wholly different person
as I was in the past - 3 or 4 times over

This is the soberest I've been in a year
"Had my tea today without any sugar, no difference"
Except I see the fear and laziness as infinitely surmountable

You're up against propaganda promulgating passive lethargy
on all fronts
Sometimes you need to admit you're better than the herd
and swat away the crab claws dragging you back down
into the bucket of schlop  
Stop feeling so bad for using a few paper napkins
when you couldn't find a washable cloth
You need to break some eggs when humiliating the charlatans
and their fans out of this cultureless slump

Amidst a closet of memories you find me,
in your simple orange shell with hidden hues within.
Your well-worn watercolors, reverent seeds of future art,
precious keepsakes of your memory still remains.

The magic art you housed brought light to early days
and life to the grayness of the cultureless country;
days of purposelessness and aimlessness, without end;
countless days of sheltering against nature, you painted my life with hope.