Maybe we’ve taken a long hard look at ourselves
Seeing with dry, burning eyes that this is not who we are
Or is it?
Cynicism is the tissue that surrounds the scars
Conspiracy is the gauze that fills the void
Is optimism a shattered virtue?
With enough substance to make out the shape
But not enough to piece it together?
Warmth In more than temperature Yearning For more than safety Minimally viable happiness Leaves half the throat parched We don’t ask for rivers Just a few drops more
Consummation of the highest order Binging, now the expectation Savoring the work of other hands Daring now to make demands The ancient chain lies muted, still Some arise to sow and till While others reap the harvest Some expose creative light While others flee the darkness Conceptual beauties stand in defiance Against the snare of ease, reliance Ever-raging is that eternal feud Between the movers and the moved
Embers and sinew
Voices resound
The fires of progress
Met with boots on the ground
None of us can breathe
Until all of us can breathe
Strange rituals
The beaked mask
Is donned no longer
In its stead
Plexiglass and cloth
The same wall
Between sick and well
Will the hazmat suit
Instill the same terror
Centuries later
As the plague doctors of old?
There is never growth
Where the ground is not readied
Untilled soil
Is never ready for change
Descale the heart
Raw and afraid
Is the only way to listen
The only way to pray
Feel more than you think
The fear felt by others
Making your own heart race
Your feet in the same place
I suppose we all have visions
That we carry to the dirt
High minded goals and creative urges
Most of which never come to be
Patents that are never filed
Books that won’t be written
Dreams that leave with the oxygen
From brain matter, in the end
Are the thoughts we have
Those which crossed other minds before?
The only difference being
We take the time to write them down
While the older mind wrote down others?
A tentacled masculine life
Of backyards and meat
Grass tidy and neat
You found yourself a wife
Is it all so toxic
If you found peace
In a role call
To feed and heat
Not for you
Yes for me
It just ain’t me babe
In this we’re not the same
Maybe the only life I’ll lead
Is of anonymity and femininity
Every now and then
I find a balance
Optimism that’s paper white
Not yellowed by time
Or wrinkled by tears
My mind inside a paper lamp
Lifted by a breeze
Carried by the wind
I don’t want to come down
From that glowing height
Forgetting
Is a drug
A crutch
And a curse
It serves its purpose
Remedies the past
A prescription painkiller
A memory marauder
This crutch steadies the brittle
Weaponizes the worn out
Welcomes the willing
But it is indiscriminate
Tosses out the baby with the bath water
What’s broken with what’s whole
Until it’s all a wash
And nothing is dirty or clean
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