I have fears – they are very real to me. But contrary to what the some may think, my greatest fears are not rejection and abandonment.

My greatest fear is that everyone will continue to turn their heads while victims are screaming.

My greatest fear is that survivors will express exactly how they feel, whether verbally, or acting out, and they will continue to be invalidated by being told they need medication and therapy in order to control their behavior, thereby reinforcing what they learned as children.

My greatest fear is that victims will continue to be silenced by therapy, or numbed from medication, and the clinicians, the researchers, will continue to ‘theorize’ and develop treatment that, in the long-run, is not helpful because they, themselves were NOT abused and have no idea what really should be done.

My greatest fear is that survivors will continue to be lab rats in the development of treatment that is not helpful, they will continue to drop out, time after time, and they will continue to self-harm, ‘repeat the trauma’, and possibly commit suicide because they believe no one cares.

My greatest fear is that the statistics will grow and no one will do anything about it because they do not know what to do. These are the facts:
             A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds
             More than five children die every day as a result of child abuse.
             Approximately 80% of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4.
             It is estimated that between 50-60% of child fatalities due to maltreatment are not recorded as
             such on death certificates.
             More than 90% of juvenile ****** abuse victims know their perpetrator in some way.
             Child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic level, across ethnic and cultural lines, within all
             religions and at all levels of education.
            About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing
            the horrible cycle of abuse.
            About 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one
            psychological disorder.

And this reflects only what is reported. Imagine what that percentage would be if all of the unreported cases were included.

And of the millions of children that survive the abuse, many grow up to be adults who are able to put it behind them, succeed and present themselves as an acceptable member of society, and many of them do not. But what are we DOING about it? When will people stop turning their heads? When will we finally stop, look and listen to these children being abused and to the adults who were abused as children?

When will we, society, decide that child abuse, and ****, and ****** assault are important, and affect millions of lives every year, and that it can be just as deadly as cancer. When will we finally stop whispering and turning our heads and actually face it and do something to stop it, and effectively treat those who ‘survived’?

I hope it happens in my lifetime, and I hope I can make a difference!

I tilted my head . I wilted and was dead -
No longer entangled in this snare called life -
none the less remembered, respected
Dejected in my illusion -
Where i wander most often, unclaimed and disillusioned -
Whatever was I hoping for-
longing in which to see -
the distorted , unreported - dismemberment of ME -
Expectations are like curses, drowning and alienating ALL who dare to dream -
The Ideals of a stranger - I am now what I seem

America.
Home of the brave land of the-
1,520 children who died this year from child abuse
and the 670,000 who lived through it
The 1,825 who are abused each day
and for every one report of child abuse-
two others go unreported.
So Josh Duggar can get away with molestation
because of the statue of limitations-
and everyone talks of "his recovery"
but his own sisters cries go unheard.

Oh America-
Where colleges would rather
cover up a ****, than catch a ******.
Where High Schools take pity
on abusers who play sports
or have a high social standing-
Where abusers don't get charged
because the girl they gang raged
was "intoxicated".
Where 4/5 of assaults are committed
by someone known to the victim.
44% of victims are under 18
and every 107 seconds another PERSON
is sexually assaulted
and 68% go unreported
and 98% of rapists will never spend a day in jail.

America-
Home of brave land of the-
41,149 deaths by suicide in 2014.
where it's the 3rd leading cause of death
in youth ages 10-24.
Where 70% of youth in juvenile justice systems
suffer from a mental illness-
but instead of treating it
we continue punishing it.

America.
Where John Green can romanticize
the 2nd leading cause of death in the US
Cancer!
Speaking of cancer-
why haven't we found a cure?
America!
Where why would they find a cure
for a billion dollar industry
that's fueling our economy.

America.
where you have freedom of speech-
but jet fuel can't melt steel beams
and everything is a government conspiracy.
Loose change taught you more about 9/11
than the news.
Where 500,000 Iraqi civilians
have died because of the Iraq war.
and roughly 6,000 soldiers died in Iraq-
but that's not including those who died after the fact
brain intact with PTSD coming home to broken families-
and we still think war is a smart idea.

America!
Where those who are supposed to protect us
eventually just start killing us-
and getting away with it to!
Where protests turn to riots
and everyone that's a shade darker
is labeled "****"
But an "upstanding"
white male citizen
can get away with molesting his sisters-
I'm looking at you Duggar, again.
Where Freddie Gray can be tortured to death
but hey no one cares
because he had a record of selling drugs right?

America-
The land of brave home of the
genetically modified foods.
You know-
the food we actually have to re-modifed
so other countries will deem it safe enough to eat.
Where our fruit isn't even actually fruit
unless it's label ORGANIC.
Where there's a McDonald's around every street corner
and being Vegan in today's food industry is impossible-

America!
Where we were once a melting ***-
but everyone complains about immigrants.

America!
Home of the brave, land of the free.
Where ignorance and Justin Bieber
are more accepted than the LGBT community-
aren't you proud to be an american?

Acrostic poem

Necessity of society
Intensity of people agitation
Redefined the common man’s power
Boiling over attacks on women
Hot-tempered youth
Ashamed to say
Yardstick of behavior
Assault on women go unreported
-Naveen

Now:
The EMTs respond.
A Jane Doe is found dead.
Beneath the I-90 overpass.
They lift her
Zip her into a bag,
And transport her to the morgue.
They can’t feel sad.

Today:
The few wispy strands of hair that remain
Dangle haphazardly from her scabby head
Jagged misshapen teeth protrude from dry cracked lips
betraying breath that stinks of infection and decomposition
Vermin gnaw on exposed flesh while parasites feast within.
Her eyes dim as her body putrifies.

Last Week:
Mission workers prop her up against the wobbly chain link fence
A thin blanket is wrapped around her bony shoulders and
Her blue-tarp awning is adjusted
She would be less wet and cold.
For a night.
They leave a cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup.
The rats eat most of it.
She wouldn’t have kept it down anyway.

Last Month:
The shelter is scary and dangerous.
She couldn’t sleep without nightmares and her screaming disrupted other ‘guests’.
The shelter workers apologize and put her out at 2:19 AM.
She finds a spot between two dumpsters.
It reeks of **** but is unoccupied.
Sometime in the dark she is ***** and beaten by two crackheads.
The crime is unreported.

Last Year:
The fluorescent lights sting her eyes.
The antiseptic smell burns her nose.
The noise and chaos that surround her make her dizzy and disoriented.
She fights hard to get away but is restrained by strong hands – then leather straps.
A painful jab in her arm and then nothing.
Days or weeks later she emerges in a haze.
Kindly eyes greet her.
They stay with her.
They accompany her to the shelter.
They tell her to come back for follow-on care.
She never sees them again.

Before:
The divorce rips her heart in two.
She has nothing.
She is nothing.
Her world crumbles beneath her and she crumbles with it.
Where would she go?
What would she do?
Everything has become so wrong.

Once Upon a Time:
She was happy. Joyful.
Filled with life and hope.
He was smart, funny, successful.
Together they were magical.
Perfect.

The lives we've chosen are leaving us broken
(Do you need your)
Crammed in a corner, don't speak unless spoken to
(Blue screen covers?)
December's coming close to reignite the ghosts
Of elder superstition, mythology becomes religion again!

Marry me, my darling
We've only seconds left to go
I know I'm not the life of the party
But no one here wants to die alone!

Let sleeping dogs lie! You're kicking a
Dead horse!
To arms! To arms! To arms!
Left wing and sou-souwest.

Cheers to the masses for forgetting the past
(Sticks and stones)
Beautifully passive, raising our glasses
(This is our home)
I want to ignite you, that's why I'm spiteful
And loathing your masters, hiding in laughter!

So walk away, you harlot.
Far too tired to give you time
You're not worth the effort I made to hide in
My hope for the world to split

Let sleeping dogs lie! You're kicking a
Dead horse!
To arms! To arms! To arms!
Bury our fears in our outlets.

Last call before we close the door
Just wait until the power's down
Let it be known coast to coast
What we've hidden underground.
Drive a hatchet into your front door,
Inside us all is warrior bone
Burn up all your televisions
Destroy all your telephones!
The future shall not be distorted
No crime shall go unreported
Give it to them as you found it
Without homes, without a sound!
I'll give my words, shut up and listen:
The old ways died and no one missed them,
Don't you see your hallucinogens
Are no excuse for ignorance?

Let sleeping dogs die. You're kicking a
Burnt bridge.
To arms! To arms! To arms!
Behold the 22nd.

A past corrupted.
Innocence & happiness is interrupted.
Evil & sin in this house has erupted.

Justice does not protect & serve.
Criminals never get the incarceration they deserve.
To do unspeakable crimes they have the nerve.

In Mexico....
To be some perverts ***.
Unreported child *** crimes bestow.
Law enforcement will never know.

Low priority cases never made it to the Hall of Justice.
Uncredible witness unrecommended.
My custodial declarations untrusted.

Too many  crimes to count on two hands with fingers of five.
Low lives with cheated wives.
In jails they are still alive.
The queen bee of their hive.

A trust destroyed & betrayed.
A little girls self-esteem frazzled & frayed.
In danger she stayed.
Clueless friends with daily she played.
In my bed at night beside me his sickness laid.
To sell my *** so he could get paid.

America.
Home of the brave land of the-
246,6660,710 white americans
living in this country,
which accounts for 77% of our population
but Black Americans
only make up 13%
and somehow in 2015
were killed at a rate 5x higher than whites.

Lovely, wonderful free land of America
Where 37% of black americas
were killed by police in the year 2015.
And out of the 102 cases
of unarmed black men being killed
only 10 police were charged
only 2 were convicted.
Only one spent jail time-
one WHOLE year of weekend come and goes.

Oh America-
Where colleges would rather
cover up a ****, than catch a ******.
Where High Schools take pity
on abusers who play sports
or have a high social standing-
Where abusers don't get charged
because the girl they *****
was "intoxicated".
Where 4/5 of assaults are committed
by someone known to the victim.
44% of victims are under 18
and every 107 seconds another PERSON
is sexually assaulted
and 68% go unreported
and 98% of rapists will never spend a day in jail.
and I know I mentioned this in the last poem
but Brock Turner, I'm looking at you.
But not in the eyes-
I don't want you to think I want it or anything.

America!
Where said white male ******
only gets two-six months in jail
and a man selling CDs in front of a gas station
gets four shots to the chest.
But instead of asking
why he got shot,
they pull up his criminal record-
because you guys, I thought you knew
committing a crime automatically
qualifies you for ******!
But the white rapists
swim record gets pulled up
his mug shot gets hidden
and his social stature gets him sympathy.
But some people see Alton Sterling's son
distraught on a TV screen and feel no remorse
I'M NOT ******* AROUND ANYMORE.

America.
Where again
the people who are supposed
to protect us-
just end up killing us.
By us I mean people
and by that I mean "All Lives Matter"
because ya know
more whites get killed by cops too!!!

America.
Where white people make up 77%
of this lovely population
and black people only make up 13%
so it would make sense
that more whites die.
Even though statistically that's inaccurate
(please see first paragraph of this poem).

America!
That reminds me
We're home of the All Lives Matter movement
because white superiority
is being called into question
and we like to think white supremacy
doesn't exist anymore!

"Why do black people
have such a chip on their shoulder all the time?"
"Can't they just like, idk- get over it?"
They will get over it
When racism doesn't exist anymore
and they can do everyday tasks
without experiencing discrimination.
They will get over it
when people don't see their skin as a threat
and use the "n-word" like it means nothing.
They will get over it
when they can receive a fair trial
They will get over it
when systematic oppression
isn't etched into their amount of melanin
They will get over it
when justice is ******* served.

America-
where the idea of blacks being inferior
is what the constitution and this country
was built off of.
Where people like Tomi Lahren
obviously don't own a history book
because she likes to think
the civil war was fought
to actually end slavery.
Instead of beefing over turf.

America-
home of the brave land of the-
Trump supporters!
& as Trump Says-
Let's Make America Great Again!
I'm sorry, I'm having trouble remembering
can you remind me-
when this country was ever actually great?
It seems like he actually means-
Let's Make America A Grave Again.

Hey America-
I'm not ******* around anymore.

Dubai, the shiny city among dunes built by
                         migrant workers and their blood. Yes, this unparalleled luxury,
                        hotel staff smile like bright buttons, or else. Your discontent may cost them their job, suicide among migrant workers go unreported; so guests can sleep easily in gilded beds.
                       Dubai will sink in the sand when economic forces move elsewhere
                       and this hubris on the parched soil will be a historical interlude.
                      The wind in the night will murmur of untold suffering and
                       the soul of the dispossessed shall whisper words for no one’s ears
                      and shall be goats bleat before sacrificed on the altar of time
                     without end; for this is the universal law, those you enslaved will
                      arise and possess you.

you leave me - without a word
full of shame, living crypt
naked, empty, stripped
the next morning - blurred

hold me like old times; dreams deferred
abuse unreported; wrists ripped
you leave me without a word
full of shame, living crypt

investment and love, confidence spurred
careful tread, but into your arms I slipped
now your love comes with fees; shipped
but I, your little bird
you leave me without a word

Yes,
this is another poem
about ****.

Sorry,
I know you’re
exhausted from
hearing them.

Sorry,
I know it makes you uncomfortable.

****.
There I
go apologizing again.

Ok. Reframe.
Start over. Own it.

This is a poem
about **** and you better
******* listen.

Ok too harsh,
too harsh.
They’re not gonna listen now.

Again.

Ok, uhh...
personal story.
One time my
best friend and I
were ***** by the same
person.

Ok wait, no...
too personal.
They’ll just pity me,
instead of seeing the
larger issue.

Ok, I think I finally got it.

To give you an idea
of the numbers,
all of my friends and I
have been victims
of  ****** assault.

Great, perfect,
not too personal,
we can talk about it in the abstract
like nothing terrible
happened to me,
specifically.

That’s it. That’s it.
That’s how we can talk about.
Depersonalized,
Submerging our feelings
with facts.
Statistics are our best friend.

So here it goes:
Did you know false reports of ****** assault are
rare, ranging from 2 to 10%
of all reported ****** assaults.
That the percentage
I just quoted was
from a study that
collected data over 10 years
from reports on a college campus,
after determining in a meta-analysis of 20
other studies on false reporting that the
FBI data used was "unreliable."

Conversely, about 63% of
****** assaults go unreported.

Wouldn't it make sense
to air on the side of
believing women
then? As opposed to
casually
insinuating they could
have ulterior motives
reporting ****** assault,
political or otherwise.

That isn't an argument.
That is fear talking.
That is guilt talking.
That isn’t us having a conversation –
that’s just you blabbering illogically,
crippled by the fear you’ll be next.

You are wrong.
You are wrong!
Your arguments are baseless.
You are completely ignoring the facts.
There is no evidence.
You need to stop talking,
and politely listen.
Because you have a lot to learn.
And while we are not obligated,
many of us are willing to teach you:

The only ulterior motive women
have 'outing' people,
for a CRIME
they committed,
the only benefit,
is to make sure the person responsible
doesn't **** someone else.
And you not believing us,
you chastising us,
you rolling your eyes,
you silencing us,
lets that person walk free.

There is no more mystery, no hidden gem,
No unfound treasure, no rock unturned,
No land untrodden, no holy ground,
#unfiltered all around.

No want for tomorrow, no story to tell,
No chinese whisper or wishing well,
No unheard tick of a clocks pointed handle,
No unchartered water or unlit candle.

No patience to bare just one more day,
No unscripted plays, leaving nothing to say,
No route unmarked, no map undiscovered,
No unbeaten tune, no songs uncovered.

No sitting, wandering what might never be,
Why bother wondering when google is free.

No crime unreported, yes, a marvelous thing,
But if crimes become nothings is war a greater thing?
No boundaries obeyed, as cultures melt together,
Empty replies downpour with "whatevers"

And we stand back to witness,
Life moving with such speed,
Unable to slow it, barely able to breathe!

The mother pearl.
Starved.
Marveled by it.
In the deep blue sea .
Sparkling precious gemstones.
In keyless entry without technology.
Treasures like feathers.
Marble statues you want to pursue.
He thought you knew.
Creepy janitor.
Endless corridors.
Vacant Lots.
Dark stairwell.
Late night patrol.
Criminals out of control.
Cereal for breakfast again in a bowl.
Foul people.
Full of regret.
With a stubborn mindset.
Don't fret.
You don't need a vet.
Let's make a bet.
You'll be in my debt.
You can try to disappear on a jet.
I'll catch you in my net.
You'll be my pet.
A mistake I won't let.
If you betray my trust.
I will do what I must.
You lost your wallet again?
All your money gone.
How sad.
That's bad.
Did you tell your dad?
I guess you really are bankrupt.
A life unfortunately got interrupt.
It's disturbing how I choose my wording.
Slime, mold, mildew.
Gross slosh.
Dreams of floating.
Lard thats bloating.
Braggers gloating.
Forget everything I said.
And all that you read.
Meaningless words that make no sense.
Confusing thoughts written.
I can't concentrate on reading what I wrote.
I blank out.
It's not in here.
Don't whisper in my ear.
The same things you said to her.
Nobody's jealous.
Relentless ranting
Annoying chanting.
You choked me on purpose.
Skipping thoughts.
Unreported crimes.
Shameful timing.
Pityless weeping.
Silent cries.

CONSUMED BY THE ******
HANGED BY THEIR SINS
THEIR UNMISTAKEND FAULTS
AND YET, NOT ONE SOUL CLAIMED
THEIR WORDS BROKEN AND SEWN BACK
TOGETHER WITH THEIR DISEASED FANTASIES
"TELL ME, PLEASE TELL ME IT AIN'T SO
HAD TO BELIEVE IT SO I WALK ALONE"

UNREPORTED CRIMES OF ABUSE
UNHEARD CRIES OF THE WICKED
WE ALL LOST OUR WAY
JUSTIFIED BY THEIR CRUELTY
WHAT THE HELL IS LEFT FOR ME
A DREAM DESTROYED
"ALL HOPE HAS BEEN ABORTED
INSIDE IM DEAD"

WHY THE HELL SHOULD I CARE FOR THEM
SCORNED WITH TRUTH
I BLAME THEM ALL
I COUNT THE MANY TIMES I WAS LEFT ALONE
WANTING TO GO WHERE I FELT WARM AND SECURE
THANK YOU FOR NOT SAVING ME
"CAUSE YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE DOG
YOU CAN'T SEE MY EMOTION"

Your words fall on deaf ears.
Your voice I choose not to hear.
Your breathe wreaks of stale beer.
Get away from me no one wants you here.

Away from here years ago & today.
I wish there had been a way.
To teleport or astroproject so I didn't have to stay.
Towards someone good to connect.
Of me people continue to neglect.
Evil is who I deflect.
Beauty is what I reflect.
Loneliness is what I get.

My eyes saw.
What you did broke the law.
Because of you ma kicked out Pa.
Every fiber of your being has a flaw.
Your morals are baked & your evil is raw.
Your hands are like a devil's claw.

Unfiled & unreported.
My thoughts real & undistorted.
The "mom" I disowned is disheveled
Her house pak rat hoarded.
Piles of filth & stench.

To know your face.
Ruined my past I can not replace.
Here at home of crimes there was no trace.
Police said low priority case.
Heaven has been a disgrace.
You've been banned from that place.

I do not write this poem to attack men
Rather to make them understand the world in which we live
Has been turned against us woman and left us in the dark
Where ads, magazines, video games all make us out to be ****** objects with no brains
And when that dark comes he will see us no more than a ****** object

When we speak of #MeToo it is questioned
What were you wearing
What were you drinking
Did you kiss him
Did you go to his house
Did you take any drugs

The ****** assault hurts less than the accusations
When principles, parents, friends all victim blame you
The sense of wanting revenge is replaced with wanting it to disappear.

2 of 3 ****** assaults go unreported because woman don’t feel like we’re being heard.
We are victim blamed and we are tired of being treated like ****
When health education and the media are more open with consent
And rapists actually get jail time
Is when I will live in a world where I am okay with having a girl as my child
But as of right now I am scared shitless that I will not be able to protect her from the ugly
That is why I stand with the #MeToo movement

as I go
in
one ear
and out
the same

my brother’s kid
comes to
in the mind
of a beast
that
like any
beast

exists
as its own
memoir
of unreported

sightings
made
to chart
god

by sound

So to my daughter,
should any fool mishandle the wild geography of your body,
How it rides a red-running current
Like any good wolf or witch just bleed, Boo
Give that blood a biblical name
Something of stone and mortar
Name it after Eve's first rebellion in that garden
Name it after the last little girl to have her genitals mutilated in Kinshasa
That was this morning .
Give it as many syllables as there are unreported **** cases,
Name the blood something holy,
Something mighty
Something unlanguangeable
Something like the end of the world
Name it for the roar between your legs and the women will not be nameless
Hear,just bleed anyhow

This heartbreak was an incantation,
Rumor and influence and imitation.
Malevolent power channeled through,
Assumptions and lies deftly hewn.
Harsh runes gouged into bedrock,
Strong shoulders disfigured by stony bulk.
Fault lines grinding thoughts to dust,
Eldritch-enspelled entropy engraving rust.
Mortally wounded by arrival unreported,
Time and space...     by distance distorted.
Lost and found, wreckage on stormy sea,
Seeking our love, stolen in infancy.

Shell-cased in soft power
Arms races
Like Carter
I break it down harder
Than kami wind martyrs
With ardor of green cards
Discarded
In red
Apartheids
On the rise
To Partition again
The expendable lives
Buying lies as they trend
From the ones who pretend
Like they too
Don’t depend
On the never-ending
Yellow journalist’s
Pen
Telling them
It means war’s
‘Round the corner
Drug store
Selling them
Echo chambers
Of peace and secure
Insecurities
Dangers and angers
And more
Of the brink
Of extinction
Addiction
In sync with
The small fortune,
Scorching-earth
Failed-marriage trinket
Don’t blink
Or it’s on
To the next
Recrudescence
Perplexed
By how many world hungers
To solve
Could be left
Since the right
In its free-trading slave
Not-so hidden agenda
Still plots its crop
Stockpile
Encomienda
As super-tiendas
Wal off reservation
With always low prices
Conflating inflation
Displacing the plantation
Haitian
Still shaken
By ground-breaking
New innovation
Starvation
And scarce information
Pertaining
Distorted
Contorted, deformed
Or just goes unreported
For more entertaining
Brain-draining discordant
Conformists in torrents
Stream only the terrorized-truth
Water-boarded
Reform is aborted
The right to choose
Thwarted
The norm is a misleading,
News-feeding
Horde
I abhor
As I’ve poured it out,
Sorted out
This horrid, sordid crowd
Doubting that anything reel
Is revealed
To be real
Or just part of some heartless king’s
Artifice
Art of the Deal

Something in our midst
Don't want us to live
It's doing everthing in its Power
To **** and promote Death.
The media shows it
Paints the bleakest picture.
No wonder
Their are suicides
No wonder
People want to get high
No wonder
People want to escape
When the only future they see
Is a Lie.

That's what You want, that's Your work:
To create despondency, estrangement, dissolution;
Create divisions, create rich and poor---
There's a War right away!
You've got everyone all over the place,
Everyone at variance!
That's Your Intention---generating disorder,
mayhem, HELL!
Never relenting!
Forceful through the centuries.
But
Out there
In dystopia
Infinite good acts eventuate
Unreported, ignored, rarely
Brought to light
Because
The light we live in is darkness,
Never
To be confused with   The Night Sky.

In a world of black and white, they told me to put down my pride so I stood in an alley waiting for my mind to decide.

My thoughts were a mess. It wasn't just black and white. Colors were mixing together and it was a beautiful sight.

I open my eyes and let them paint the Earth. It was bewitching. They showed me how much mother nature is worth.

The world is missing out but I wonder if they can see what I can see.
Who would want to ignore this? or did they chose not to pick reality?

God created this work of art but it's been scratched by mankind.  No one seems to notice but its not that hard to find.

In this colorless world, men can wave hello with blood on their hands.
It makes me shiver that people don't know that the color red will always be a part their plans.

I will not swallow my pride and pretend that I didn't see the palette they are waiting to use. I'll show the people the shades they tried to hide and power they've abused.

He who holds the palette is no artist. Too many strokes of red have been brushed yet the puddles are still left unreported. The man who likes to play God is not to be supported.

Spots of red are scattered everywhere. Yet, he chooses to look the other way. He chooses to live in a fool's paradise and it's a price he's willing to pay.

We have never been here before
explorers on a planet
undiscovered
since the sun rose at dawn

opportunity and possibility
confront us if we dare to grasp it
today is the first day of the future
a gem, untarnished by event
unwritten by tabloid hacks
unreported by roving news teams

no shot has rung out
no insult been hurled
or reputation tarnished
hatred and prejudice
are chosen paths we can avoid

this is a new day
this is the future
if we let it be

It’s simple out here
Not a care in the world
And the people subsist
On a lack of concern
For the first world successes
We think make it turn
So I learn to free presses
To truth unreported
And spray paint white privileges
Fortunes extorted
By fathers who founded
For-prophet empires
With whip-crackin’
Sword slashin’
Baptism fires
And miles of wires
To spread the transmission
The culture shockwave
Brain controlling submission
To try before buy it
To quiet the riot
Deny it, then feed us
That Maduro diet
Rewind it, play back
Stories always the same
Claimants staking the land
And then riggin’ the game
To in their favor write
A more masterful class
As our future remains
In the chains of the past

demonstrations
protestations
not forgetting
confrontations
and
unreported for the most part
by television stations.

The united nations?
an oxymoron,
who's getting turned on
now?

Don’t let it slip
What you used to do,
Used to be
Nothing good comes of me
Dreaming her
Lucidly
Looping her in
To assure
Continuity
But incongruity
Ruins the story,
The details embellished,
Withheld,
Unreported
Like those obfuscated,
Conflated
Make me
In her eyes, but a scared little boy
Verily

Abettor


If I am not being prosecuted

then I fear that I have done

nothing wrong or I haven't

offended anyone, therefore

I am guilty of being a silent

witness to a crime that has

been committed and so far

it has gone unreported and

not contested or protested

by me. So I am an abettor.

The Chronicle carries a Spokane story unreported

I claim fame as a first resident
Two apartments

304
603

A Chelsea hotel
Blank canvases whiskered and primed
9 months of feminine devine
one pivotal girl
Her and I
shattered misogyny
from ceiling to wall windows
a flammable mother daughter force
soaking and smiling
in the gritty face of  Spokane
2 floors below us we found our landing
a relationship meant for cinema
Single mothers
laugh and snarl and bear down
skipping hibernation
dark humored and vinyl loving
wiping our kids' noses
and our own
All the while flying above it all
two moons among a jilted sky
Always asking ourselves "why?"

The Chronicles continue..

A farm sink
Mid century modern bar stools
An oversized satirical monkey piece of art
I bought at an auction financing a blind goat
These items were all there
They all sigh
remembering when I held my breath for too long

I survived suffocation from grief
The women in my life suited up
Battled tank into biting coral
handed me their bubbling piece
I decide on oxygen over hydrogen
White over reef
These walls carried me.
Abuse tried to tell me a different story
"Notice to Vacate" was a friend of mine
603 was my muscle
She gave my daughter and I glory

A vampire tried to merchant our space
in many forms
Little did he know, we only thrive in light
I can be proud to say
I left my glorious gargoyles on my own
as soon as I knew I could protect myself
and my story.