I Fear

What It Means To Vote

Lies, lies, lies, all the way down.

Do you ever really stop and think about who you're even talking about?

Do you ever think who gains off cheating you? Who wants you to stay stupid?

Do you ever think about what it means to vote?

You are deciding the fate of a society. You choose feast or famine.

So why, really, do you choose the man who has lied to you time and time again?

Why do you want the man who has shot you and left you for dead?

What the actual fuck is going on inside your head?

Do words even matter to you anymore? Do kindness and empathy mean nothing?

Are you just another sock-puppet of that moneybag in a suit?

Do you not see the bigger picture? The bots, the trolls, the media diversions?

Do you ever even think about what your vote really means?

A rapist, a felon, impeached twice, started an insurgency.

Do you even hear yourself? Do you even look at the man you're touting?

Black guy, have you seen the racism he perpetuates? Woman, have you seen the sexism he himself partakes in? Immigrants, have you seen what he wants to do to you?

Do any of you - any of you - really think about what it means to vote for this man?

The Foundations of Love

How can I get you to care about people? How can I get you to be kind?

Why do you think love happens? Why do you think people are altruistic at all?

It's not because someone told them to be, I'll tell you that much.

It's because love and kindness are what the world thrives on.

Nobody wins by being angry all the time. No man is an island.

The world is not zero-sum. Kindness shared is kindness tripled.

But I'll assume this doesn't convince you, or you would've found the path by age five.

Let's consider the people who were solitary. The people who didn't love.

Evolution filtered them all out. Evolution championed kindness.

And if that's not a good enough reason to love, then I don't know what is.

Foreboding

I am in the dark

The rain pounds on the windows

My eyes snap open

Time is running out

I can't feel the urgency

What's in the future?

I look but don't see

I understand but can't feel

I know but can't act.

I have one last chance.

I should prepare - the rain stops -

I wasted my time.

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

I Need to Move

I need to move.

I need to run.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to run from my past.

Maybe to run towards my future.

Maybe to run to beat my enemies, who are now old and weak.

I need to fight.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to assert my own superiority.

Maybe to assert my own self-defense capability.

Maybe to practice for when I am to fight my enemies on equal ground for the first and last time.

I need to move.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to run towards the future.

Maybe to fight the evils of my past.

Maybe to finally feel proud and confident of my body, of my self, for the first time.

I need to move.

I Don't Deserve A Thing

I don't deserve to be happy, I'm just another useless fool,

Doing nothing and nothing and nothing till the end of time,

and if saving the someone took 10 hours of my life and I wouldn't be noticed,

then I'd probably just let them die whatever death out of laziness.

I don't deserve to be sad, I've been relatively lucky,

I am fed, with a roof over my head, constant electricity, more clothes than I know what to do with, and the sky is blue,

and it doesn't matter that I was beaten and yelled at and traumatized,

because everyone else had it much worse and got over it, so why can't I?

I don't deserve to be wanted, I'm not supposed to be wanted,

Anybody who wants me is greatly appreciated and surely a fool,

for anybody who could love this person with this face is a miracle,

a miracle of idiocy and foolishness and complete lack of judgement.

I don't deserve to be hated, why would you hate me,

it brings you nothing and I'm not even worthy of hate,

instead please ignore me, ignore everything I say,

for the silent treatment is worse than the loudest slur.

I don't deserve to talk, I don't deserve to be known,

I don't deserve to be heard louder than the people who starve,

or the people who bleed, or the people who lose, or the people who die,

I don't deserve to deserve at all, anything in this lucky, cruel world.

A Tree Falls

A tree falls in the forest.

Nobody is nearby. Nobody to hear.

Does it even make a sound?

A tree falls in the forest.

It will impact the ecosystem

even more than it impacts the ground.

A lighthouse stops its beacon.

A ship nearby is lost and weary.

It cannot see. It runs aground.

A man dies alone in his hut.

He was kind, he was friendly, he was good.

At his funeral, no friends of his could be found.

But one kind lady far away might remember.

He had helped her find her way, a long time ago.

And so his memory, perhaps, will be skyward bound

as the man who loved everybody but himself.

Me talking to the therapist voice in my head

"okay, so what do you say when someone says they're not worth anything"

"Who the hell says they're worthless I'll fight them" "Alright, now what should you think when you're the one that feels like you're worthless" "Well I'd be right, I am worthless" "no-"

As I put my elbow on the table and the hand under my mastoid bone and grab at my short hair I stop and think

wow okay, that felt strangely feminine why did I do that

Cycle of Pain

Let me be alone.

Let me be in suffering.

I have earned nothing less.

I have failed you.

I have failed them.

Throw me to the dogs.

Throw me on the fire.

Throw me like paper scraps.

Let me achieve penance.