"retelling" poems
Along the banks of Lake Shelbyville
That’s what I think of when it’s your birthday
A camp fire burning on a cool April night
We two drinking hot mauled cider
Or better yet “Hornsby’s Draft Cider”
Talking and laughing
Making up parodies
Parodies of Zeppelin and Floyd songs
Listening to the nightingales and the crickets
And watching fire light
That almost appears to be living
Watching slow rolling clouds, and feeling the whispering wind
Rolling in and out and over and under
The engaging light of the moon and stars
And maybe some of our friends were there
And maybe it was only us
Brother and sister
Best friends forever
Retelling stories of our past
Creating memories for our future
Waxing religion and philosophy
Such philistines, think my parents
And your parents don’t get it
And yes we have separate parents
And yes we have the same parents
(Adoption is a funny thing you see)
You are my funny BIG, BIG, BIG brother
Santa Claus, Sasquatch, Cave Man, and Viking
And I am your little crazy sister
Flower Child and Sacagawea
And it is your birthday
And I love you always
Love, Sarah Jane Gillian Tiffany Michelle Whispering Wind Grider Minks Summers Jonathan George Washington Francis Fleming Greenlee Whiter Liston Hall
Aka Awesome Pagan Goddess
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 1:36 PM UTC
A retelling of
A story
which is often retold..
in young romance
It happens
but not only there..
an infatuation
A leap
sudden Enlightenment
new birth..
a departure from
the ordinary..
Then a discovery
life is larger..
the ordinary seems
Ruling
seems dreary and stark..
even though
there is great love
Holding the dark...
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 1:42 PM UTC
My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.
I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown.
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every prayer uttered, answered and unanswered,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
She ever possessed to the atmosphere,
For sharing, for recalling, for retelling,
One breath at a time.
~~~~~~~~~
Lipstadt-Roth, Miriam née Peiman, 1915~2013,
passed peacefully Sat. July 20th.
Critic, speaker, writer,
her fiercest feat,
her leading role, creator.
A near century of memories
her legacy, memories that
linger not, for incised,
chiseled in the granite of the
books, papers, and poetry
and the very being
of her descendants.
Her faith in Almighty,
unflagging, for he did not
forsake her in the time of
her old age, when
her strength failed.
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 12:53 PM UTC
•<>•
*the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages,
scar of pleasure, a forehead Cain mark, scarlet letter of pride,
for this reliving of our stories retelling is the skipped beat
of our connection not born from practical reason,
but from truths we own equally and though reason says
mine, it is not, it is only to be yours when the sharing
resonates resonates resonates resonates resonates
and every molecule, becomes a human tuning fork
in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with
the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit*
July 4th, 2017
•<>•
"If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers … becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul."
And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.
David Foster Wallace
Jul 4, 2017
Jul 4, 2017 at 10:47 AM UTC
where to begin?
let us acknowledge
the responsibility of our actions,
and the titles and duties,
and the unexpected,
thereof.
I was a son, till this year,
still, of sorts, but no longer,
traded it in for
orphan.
are you still a child,
when you have no parents?
are you still a parent,
when a child lost?
I am a father, and grandfather.
this definition of me,
extant, future seeded,
perhaps permanent,
perhaps not.
the product of
actions more than
thirty years ago,
and events yet-to-be thirty years
hence.
titles claimed and granted,
partial, not finite,
not definitive, nor infinite.
partial, but part and parcel,
these titles, of you,
yet
they are not the totality, of you,
but very much part of you,
for you possess precious,
The Imprint - The Gift.
the child lost,
the parent found,
the newest coming,
the oldest gone,
all imprinted on your hands,
just look at them!
there are lines on your palms
you do not know the meaning of,
you do not yet know the ending,
they are in your cells,
as you are and were in theirs.
The Imprint
is The Gift
that is
non returnable,
non refundable,
nor is it
diminished by
any stone marker, measurement
of a day, an uncertain,
certain moment.
Look in the mirror.
see them in you,
as they saw themselves in your
reflection.
ah, reflect.
acknowledge that the
absence is pain,
but look at those hands,
that face, your face,
see the
The Imprint - The Gift
permit yourself an easement,
for it the season of
recollection.
ah, re-collect, recollect.
let the story.
continue, by the retelling.
find that palm line,
find that psalm song,
where the babe lost,
the mother lost
is the babe reborn,
in new faces, forever contained in
The Imprint.
we all ken loss,
we all keen know anguish,
different kinds for different folks.
do we not all have blood?
but are there different types,
and yet,
all still blood related.
prepare yourself
for more sad to come,
and some to never,
woebegone.
but do not forget,
nay, you cannot,
for seared it is,
this imprint,
a two sided copy
of a single document,
you on them,
them on you.
~
an eyelash falls
upon the poem.
a decorative reminder,
a stop sign,
a decorative remainder,
that it is time,
to recall,
to be unafraid.
now, now, right now,
is the time to remember,
that very eyelash,
the cells that are
therein,
the eyes that it has protected,
saw, know, well recall, gave,
gave part of you
and smile,
yes, smile,
for in them,
in the lines around your eyes,
the crisscrossed cell map upon thy hands
is the
The Imprint,
The Gift.
where to end?
This imprint upon your body exterior,
part mark, part stain,
part badge, part medal,
part cain,
part ribbon black pinned.
it is twinned,
for the match, the mate,
of this gift I printed,
is still in your living cells,
and thus knowing
the imprint is yours forever,
they are not lost,
you are not lost,
for Their Imprint
is a gift that
is
never ending
shall eternal be a salve this
happy, sad, melancholy,
holy
morn, day, season.
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 8:21 PM UTC
Jolly antlers
Curling happily like fingers do
Adornment of a stranger's imagination
Funny toothless braying
A beautiful accompaniment to the white rocks
"Ting ting"
The bell strung from your neck joyously speaks your odd truth
Tender plodding of new hooves,
The scabs of your retelling leave their own interpretation of your metamorphosis
You may be reconfigured
But you are complete
My little reindeer
Jul 8, 2021
Jul 8, 2021 at 12:26 AM UTC
Faithful Sultry less
bleeding gone to die.
Toothy advice sense
take chase child in lie
to win favor from Mom,
Dad and narrow eye.
Fatty truth rubs
beneath a morsel joke,
beating bushy retreat
into a sheep's cloak.
Wrath swearing against
old, Sultry and three,
false age and stiff tail
boar honest friend's free.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 5:01 PM UTC
There's the mosh...sordid details that thing...
creeping of sort...retelling...to stay in focus.
A silent film whose black borders encapsulate
a slab of skyward white.
Visages...opening...opened...to interpretation.
"The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough."....ashen...
daguerreotype of a Zen Garden.
All of nature's pretties cast in an occult brew...
stirred, and stirring...composite sketches posted
and burned upon lampposts.
At large...ritualistic making-of-face...illusion
trafficking the ever present primes of lives...
"the center of which is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere."...attestation o' mugs.
Visages...plucked from a year of our lord,
to be...rendezous of all light's putting to...
years thereof.
Alien unto thyself...oogly boogly, yet mirror-imaging...
behold/beheld/beholden.
By sleight of Hand...visages, who'd otherwise
be as soon pruned and leathery, inanimate under the
sun.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
The language in the dimmer rooms seems to represent its light source well
How soft they speak and seem to be at peace
with the movement of the music and the madness that is pulling me into this
And the shades of the lamps are woven red
The light, it stains and consecrates
anointing all forgotten forms that swirl and smoke
and haunt this place
The girls in gowns all nurse the dark
pulling it near to their swelling *******
and watch as it seeps to their hearts
and beats within their ****** chests
And here I know that seduction breeds from wanton hearts that would
****** and grows and spreads its vine
and leaves embracing those who might have moved
But now we're made to drink the night from vials black and thick
with such intoxicating delights would leave you drunk
inside this dream
And you watch them take the light from you
and you find yourself on a velvet couch
tasting the skin of a foreign girl
Her eyes are black and wet like oil
and she ties your hands with a string of pearls
and you tremble like a frightened bird
And she closes in and captures you to place you
in a silver cage deep within her poisoned womb
So once you're safe inside she might let you out
to fly in circles around the room,
but it's always night and there is no moon
and you wonder if you're alive
and you're not sure if you want to be
but you drink her sweat like it was wine
any you lay with her on a bed of blue and it's awful sweet
like the fruit she cuts and feeds to you
Apr 3, 2012
Apr 3, 2012 at 7:35 PM UTC
these curls
these waves
they tell the story
of the people before me
how they came across the ocean
an ocean with waves like mine
these curls
they are springs
they are the spring
they are the life inside me
the earth that grows flowers
they are telling you that i am here
and that i am the story
the story of stories
the retelling of the lives that came before me
they tell of home,
of movement and flavor
these curls
they are mine
and they are good
Aug 5, 2017
Aug 5, 2017 at 9:27 PM UTC
[Here lies...]
Here lies memory.
Kneeling grief,
monologue
cloaking grave stones
loveless hands polished.
Self pity
in automotion.
Solitude.
Who will love us now?
Retelling stories
of the gone past,
biased truth
to elude
this
emptyness.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 9:45 AM UTC
Dandelion Flights, so Dandy
He's a Swell kinda fella
If you catch him at a proper Hour
He gets the Rosy Red, ya See
Reviews Legends, some about
Storming the Beaches of Normandy
Gritting Power of this Jaws,
Leans in close for Dramatists Pause
An Aged Mouth, the Black of Life
Spits over into his World of Words
Spirits gathering, the Deadening in Delivering
The Tales of the Long Lost Listeners
I Revel in the Imagery, Mindsight Sees
Battlegrounds Soundtrack
The lapping Tide, the remote Tanks and Warplane Engines, the dusty soldiers yelling out commands,
Words too faint to Understand
but the Sound of Fear, Gutwrenching, Rage, Pits of Painstaking, Heroic Strain
I'd so easily slip back in Time
To relive his Stories of Lucid Dreams
WAKE-UP ISN'T CONTRAST
I Only Will my Eyes open
After a Silence has Befallen
My Lids Jolt Open,
As I survey the Scene, Listening, Feeling for any Sign and Everything The Moment collapsed
In to the Present Presence.
Reaching over the Table
I felt for breath and the Old Man's Essence, I sighed and shook my head Knowingly
This Man who fought all Those Battles and Lived to Tell, Would not leave in It's Retelling,
not from this World nor the Next
No way, Not this One....He was just One of the many Spirits that passed through from Time to Time, and needed
an Ear to hear His Story...
I certainly didn't Mind...
Ethereal Sport is my Truest kinda Scene.
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 11:17 PM UTC
for Harlon
who recalled them to me five years later, asking for the all of them...
only on Mother’s Day +1
and for Miriam
———————————
My Mother is Dying July 2013
My mother is dying.
It is a process. Days pass,
She neither eats or drinks,
Yet she lives on.
I watch each labored exhalation,
A subtraction, a countdown.
It is as if she was returning each singular day,
Every prayer uttered, answered and unanswered,
Every word e're spoke, every dream dreamt,
She ever possessed to the atmosphere,
For sharing, for recalling, for retelling,
One breath at a time.
~~~~~~~~~
Lipstadt-Roth, Miriam née Peiman, 1915~2013,
passed peacefully Sat. July 20th.
Critic, speaker, writer,
her fiercest feat,
her leading role, creator.
A near century of memories
her legacy, memories that
linger not, for incised,
chiseled in the granite of the
books, papers, and poetry
and the very being
of her descendants.
Her faith in Almighty,
unflagging, for he did not
forsake her in the time of
her old age, when
her strength failed.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 5:44 AM UTC
The aged wood of the boardwalk echos hollowly, but has a damp undertone from the left behind wet footprints of the day.
We thud forward in silence, commenting trivially on the nights happenings when my attention is slowly stolen.
Silently, the night wind picks up the lost sand on the boards and sprinkles it across my feet, desperate to take my attention.
Uncaught by anyone but me, a waver in her voice in the prime of her retelling of her day,
Did she notice my distraction?
In a final attempt at shallow conversation we turn to talking about the weather.
But, the wind is greedy.
It whips the sea oats until they shiver and sigh, an eerie sound.
Silence.
Our final few steps on the board walk crunch. Crunch until. . .
Finally, our eager toes lick the sand, cooled by the wind and stars.
Naturally, unknowingly our toes dig and burrow in joy,
reminiscing to the innocent barefooted days in the sand-box.
The wind, eager again for my attention, breathes down my spine.
We quicken our pace.
As we drawn nearer to the ocean, the mist scares the cowardly wind away.
Sprinklings of salt, water, and sand speckle upon our sun kissed skin.
Laughter.
We lay down in the sand, each lost in our own worlds and look to the deep heavens above.
Reflections of depth and light, moon to sun, space to sea.
The peace found only in the bare nakedness of a bed of sand and friends.
Open.
Sheltered.
Free.
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 7:55 PM UTC
Finally got my second chance,
The other night or other day
I had a dream I sent this man I work
with an email, I think from my personal email address,
Revealing something I can't remember now
that was too personal in nature.
As soon as I sent it, I realized it
was the end of the world. I knew I couldn't unsend it
so I braced myself and told myself so what.
Then I woke up and was relieved this was just a dream,
this whole thing that never happened, just one less thing
to worry about.
But it felt like so close of a call.
That was last week or something,
Today I work, I go on too loudly,
He can always overhear me.
Sometimes I pass him in the hallways,
I look the other way.
Maybe it wasn't a second chance at all,
Just a retelling of what really does happen,
every day, every day.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 3:38 AM UTC
The wind-chime tolls,
Whispering tales of old,
In the late evening so cold,
Answering the calls of a wolf howl;
A figure stood alone,
In the shadows of fear and fright,
For he but have only to hide,
Until the passing of the night’s grim tide;
Trees rustled in the distance,
As a hooded soul walks in silence,
Cloaked and shrouded in moonlight’s defiance,
He was unconcerned by the stranger’s appearance;
Lips of crimson red,
And eyes dark and seemingly dead,
She glanced at him with not a word,
But somehow he completely understood;
The wind-chime jingles,
While the stars dance a merry twinkle,
For two lonely souls with hearts so brittle,
Had found each other to slowly whittle;
It was a story with many a retelling,
And each of it with no happy ending,
For when love arrives two worlds start colliding,
Taking a toll on those involved like a spell rebounding.
@byizn
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 9:05 PM UTC
Blazing and looting and feist's
Screaming "surrender!"
Machetes through a violent haze.
A group of scoundrels rioting,
Crashing and trampling as they
Wildly start howling while
Throwing bottle bombs.
Uncomfortably cramped into a secret crevice;
Violets, soothing for a moment.
Then bodies toppled over and
Singled out
Is such an existence for one to
Be devout to?
A sudden breeze, caress the aftermath of
A loosely worn disease.
Sleepy eyes, seemingly far off and
drooping low; solving puzzles.
Gazing with purpose and intent;
A veneer that's out lost upon a pier.
Swinging to a requiem,
Pacing In a retelling.
My friend, again, speak amends and
Shine a light that transcends my
Fears and my tears that prevail;
So misguided In deed.
So sure so certain that
What's done is right
But now the meanings all disguised and
Out of sight.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 4:09 AM UTC
Kinda fainted Friday nite,
De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son you done
give us a genuine affright."
De doctor, he come, he say,
"Son, it's the end o' day,
Get your **** in bed straightaway"
"Here's what you be needing:
twelve tablets of hourly salting, no halting
eight hours bed rest, no dreaming,
four gallons o' tap water, drinking,
no stopping,
***"and for god's sakery,
cease and desist from
this writing,
poetry nonsense fakery."***
Weakly, I protested,
"My poems are the waste products,
the excretions of salt water tears,
a thousand years in the making,
dreams foretelling and retelling events disturbing.
If not removed, disinterred by their inscribing,
these poisonous emotions,
shall surely cause once more
my fainting and falling demotion."
He frowned, de doctor, he was perturbed,
his medical thinking cap was for sure disturbed!
With sighs that made my heart to be a stirring ,
De doctor, he come, he say,
held forth as following, quiet murmuring:
"Here is my prescription:
if you musting,
but with strict limitations it be enforcing:
*No more than four po-ems
De doctor permit to be writ*
per hour."
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 10:37 AM UTC
Chronic disinterest
Native contempt
Velvet endeavors
Tempting regret
Instant retelling
Elephant’s hide
Plagiarized doctrine
Burning inside
Mystified longing
Questions abound
Domicile ******
Running aground
Substance ingestion
Alternate mind
Daily addiction
Hade’s defined
Jun 24, 2011
Jun 24, 2011 at 7:54 PM UTC
My inner tongue trips
over her yesterday
morning’s extemporaneous
homily and its retelling
rains down on me
temporal anomalies
through which I’ll slip the bleached
monotony chasing me.
Turn key,
return me
to the upturned
glee of a midnight macadam.
Unmanned, it’s where
the manholes open up to me
their traps of sunken yet
stacked wire-mesh baskets.
They’ve been left
to catch a refused few
turquoise-beaded strings
mixed with ash
feather-dusted by the lime,
tangerine and grape
wing beats of exotic birds
too meek to fly upward.
There the tensile tip of a sweet
and fecund smell grips me
and it squeezes out
visions of too-soon
dying in that bed
where a stripped truth lies
tenderly with the on-putting
of my put-off lies.
A low hiss heralds happy heat
and radiating pings rap me
down the shrinking-shadow hall
away from Hedone’s keep.
In the singular
pleasure of this rhythmic pluralism
my nouns and verbs find
their final agreement:
*All we’ve known
is what a wanting wind’s foretold,
but its chilly, willful voice
can no longer hold us.*
Nov 28, 2010
Nov 28, 2010 at 9:36 AM UTC
The Curtain of Time
Suspended between earth and heaven this thick dark smokiness has the beginning of time at one end and the other for now is in flux
A song of this same name says he gave me beauty for ashes let’s take a look at the ashes from earths side everything is disintegrating
All material matter is in a metamorphic state of decay new today gone tomorrow even people wear out always in the mind a true crux
Forever their beginning is rehearsed and their end never has an ending discussion we fret about what is missed by each side the loss
Look at what they missed in this year alone independence day the remembering the celebration the retelling of former glory
Peer through the curtain in front men of giant stature the founders are speaking of their exploits our loved ones give rapt attention
The father of our country gives a simple discourse of those crowning achievements there isn’t a dry eye after the telling story
This side books old and worn tell us what happened there it is breathed vouched by those it happened to the thrill reverberates
Earths snail pace lost just insignificant fractions compared to the speed of light travel beyond the curtain by thought you are there
The smoky curtain side families constrict the currents ever wider race and fills ancestral logs overwhelmed you set among your own
People that it would be hard to trace and show relation come up and give you hugs their peaceful nature leaves you a joyful air
Playing among angels and no worries will do that to you make you carefree seasoned by trailing what ifs then they turn to what is
The smoky side is brighter when facts are figured the sum of man is not told and then ended by the sod and marble stone
You touch the world with limited understanding you go to the place rich discoveries fold out of one another continuously
Amazement the norm you once plodded now you are the measureless wind free held only to heavens keel the stars out shone
In the kinetic flow all you need to know is enter designs that glory alone defines these unending lines eternal the curtain no more
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 8:39 PM UTC
Without no clout,
Is it al we’re here to do,
Passersby in the doorway,
Don’t even say hello,
Leave without a word,
Is everyone so strange,
That the silence,
Becomes normal,
You’re too sensitive,
You just wouldn’t understand,
The plight,
Of living without a clout,
A nameless face,
Standing on the edge,
Looking down and seeing,
What the hell am I trying to see,
If not for the immensity of self,
I’d extinguish,
Is there some way to make you,
Understand the plight,
Of living without flight,
A nameless being trapped inside,
A conscious reliving,
Retelling of someone else’s life,
This is not me talking at all,
This is not the world moving past,
This is just the untouchable,
Reaching out,
For something of substance,
I hope you understand,
I plead that I don’t offend,
To live without a clout is hard,
To live in the clouds,
In the mountains,
A hermit permit,
Something of a dream,
With colored horizons to dine on,
With sympathetic ears on the wind,
With simple living it is much harder,
To feel the humdrum doldrums of,
Mild, dramatic existence,
Meandering,
Wandering like an aesetic,
Draped in holy flesh,
Constantly revolving around the same players,
The same feelings,
That are never the same,
Trying to find the words to say,
To make it all worth while,
To stop and say wait,
This was all just for this.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 6:03 PM UTC
I'm a rambler.
When I talk about what's on my mind, it's like I can't stop sometimes.
And even when my mouth stops, my mind doesn't.
I'm always thinking about something, and there are very few rare moments when I'm not.
My mind also likes to jump from one thing to the next, so sometimes what I think and say are completely out of order.
This makes retelling of stories difficult at times, and it also makes writing down thoughts very difficult as well.
I have been trying to be better about sticking to things, such as writing poems and writing down things that have happened to me as recollections of a time I may forget one day.
I think I worry too much though.
I worry too much about if I will be relaying my message the way that I want it to be perceived.
I want to make sure that I make sense to others and not just myself, and that I am perceived that way.
There is that **** anxiety again.
One of my therapists once old me that it would be good for me to stick to a routine and have a foundation to stand on in my life.
The funny thing was that I always feel like It's impossible for me to have that foundation, and I also don't necessarily make it easy for myself either.
It's very rare that I finish something completely that I started solely for myself.
It's also very rare that I feel whole heartedly confident in something I'm doing, even if I appear to have the confidence thing down on the outside.
And I guess that's what life is really.
It's just twists and turns that you do or don't see coming, and you have to figure out how to handle them for yourself.
So I'm trying to be better.
I'm going to keep going with this.
I may not be consistent now, but in the long hall, I believe I can do it.
I can finally have a concrete foundation that will stay firm for me.
I will stick to it.
Jun 27, 2017
Jun 27, 2017 at 6:15 AM UTC
She talks about scars
Like she wants to know about mine
The retelling of stories
Makes me think she wants one from me
And I don't know how to tell her
That I took a knife
And carved myself up
Like the turkey on thanksgiving
That I gashed my skin because I was craving control
That I was once so alone and hurt
That I took it upon myself
To drain myself of all my emotions
Turning one pain into another
Controlling how many
Controlling how hard
Controlling how long
I could've stopped if I wanted to
But I didn't want to
And so there's a whole parade of them
Up my leg
When she traces my bones
With her fingers and feels the roughness
She sees them with her eyes
While I shut mine tight
Like it will shut me out of the situation
I'm not sure what goes through her head
Does she question
Does she accept
Does she ignore
Her mouth never reveals her mind
Only leaking hints about her own
And I know all of her scars by now
The bike accident on her elbow
The scar on her palm that matches her moms
The pencil lead from her brother
The opened drawer on her shin when the lights went out
The ****** Knuckles games as a kid
All such simple explanations
Oh yea
These 30 marks here are from when the only girl in the world who paid attention to me told me her goodbyes
And was going to **** herself
And she threatened me not to tell anyone
I told someone anyway
This one here is when I felt such strong hatred for myself
That I couldn't even bare the thought of looking at my reflection without getting enraged
This section here is for every time I wanted to put my fist through a wall
These few are from when I wanted to jump off a ******* bridge
These ones are from when I felt the need to punish myself
For making stupid mistakes
These 3 here are placed as a decoy so people would never really know how bad it was
But I've come a long way since then
The past is the past and I'm going to let it stay there
Until the key of a question is revealed to unlock the box
And with that
I will not lie
Hoping that it won't change anything
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 2:52 PM UTC
Dear America,
I’m really disappointed in you. It’s a harsh way to start a letter, I know, but that’s truly how I feel.
Our leadership (if you can call it that) has unveiled the deep rooted White supremacy and sexism that this country was founded upon. And that means that there are enough people in this country that feel this way that a man like Trump was able to get elected, that a man like Mitch is able to run the show in Congress.
America as the land, it isn’t your fault. You would’ve been happy to never have been invaded, carved up, forced to be witness to slavery and war and watching your beautiful indigenous people die and be culturally erased (in many ways still today). You are beautiful, with your mountains and trees, your beaches and oceans, your rivers and streams.
You are ugly, though, with your systemic oppression, kids in cages, Black people shot by police, housing segregation, gentrification, fatphobia, mass incarceration, capital consumerism, transphobia, misogyny, lack of mental health and addiction support, no healthcare for all, no equal right to education without stock piles of debt, and you always make a way for the wealthy and White, but you box out anyone Brown without extra expectations or attempted White washing. You pave ways and repave them, neglecting potholes and broken bridges for those that need, deserve, should have them more. You are the birthplace of internal wars, internalized sexism, colorism, homophobia, racism; you’ve made us hate ourselves as much as you hate us.
America, I expected better with the version of you I read in textbooks. But then, that version of you was written by those whose roads were paved with gold, and they profit from its retelling.
I don’t like you, America. I don’t know what hope there is for us, but I do know that I love my brothers, sisters, siblings of all genders, colors, and creeds who too want to unravel you, America, and build you back up into something better, something equitable, something for all of us.
Maybe there’s hope for you, America. Maybe there’s hope in your (r)evolution.
-Meg
May 2, 2020
May 2, 2020 at 11:22 AM UTC