Fewer Afraid

Some things I once swore were etched into my brain

Have disintegrated like tape decay

Echos crack through

But the sounds mix with others

They were there though once

Unlike the phantom bruise from the lover’s punch

Which I knew the next day

Would be tender to the touch

But wasn’t

In the darkened mirror on the day Toni died

Finger pressed to cheek expecting it

To collapse like the softest part

Of a rotten peach

I’ve sometimes borne the brunt

Of a lover’s pain spilling out

And some lessons I’ve learned past due

And others unfairly bore the weight

The calluses on my hands

Never were from praying, by the way

Though my mother would cross herself

When she kissed me goodnight

And whisper at her mother’s grave

When she dropped me at the school

She was buried one parking space

And a fence away from the playground

Where I first learned what it meant

When your body is a nesting doll

And somewhere inside is the end

No, the calluses were from the palms split at the seams

Violence made to please and harden

They have made and unmade rooms

Been broken open in destruction

And repurposed in creation

Once, they held a set of hands

Too small to even intertwine fingers

And taught it to write their name

Made ourselves into robots

By putting shopping baskets on our heads

And painted our lips to become mirrors

She spent a summer sleeping in the bed

I slept on at her age

Her name for me

A pedal tone to all I do now

Returning and returning

Escape just requires a key

Mahmoud was right

Sometimes jail keepers beg for their freedom

From those who they’ve held captive

And sometimes we are dynamite

I miss the one whose skin was the same as mine

I miss the one who gave me my name

I am guilty and repentant of so many things

I am absolved and unrepentant of so many others

These hands that once held theirs would like to be of use

The memories of what they can do have not faded

They split my palms and yours to take something precious from us

That we don’t have words for anymore, but we try and find it anyway

Exhausted, trying to shield our eyes from the glare

Of all the violence bouncing off more violence

To try and make sense of the world

Violence made for those who plan our obsolescence

These hands would like to be of use with yours

Somewhere, a hand split from making ends meet

Somewhere, another, seams in all our bodies bursting

They split my palms and yours

But when we sutured each other

We hid keys in those wounds

Inside others, dynamite

Inside others, thread and needle

Safety found together in planned obstinance

Absolved and unrepentant

When we learned to grow food to eat

Near the end of our time

Life winks and nods at us

With roles to assign

First, all plants and animals

Excluding mankind

Will be shuttled like astronauts

So just form a line

Good people must hurry on

Get as far as you can

Make computers and alcohol

Soon, we’ll talk again

Carpets were cleaner then

To sit and relax

Now, there’s streets, and apartments

And a federal tax

Explosions in sago

Versus trailer park labs

Making homemade insulin

With what little they have

Treat killing an arab

With ssris

Short-selling coffins

Kick sand in our eyes

So, just draw funny pictures

Of people in suits

Grown men using toothpicks

To poke at the truth

Belief in conspiracy

Illusory walls

The world is disgusting

But truth in it all

Hang what I say to you

In the magneted fridge

And cut all the curses

You said in front of kids

Come 50 years after now

With a limitless globe

The terror of savagery

Now you’re coming back home

Come off and fall

So that I can pick you up

Our homes are not

The kinds of places you’d own

Come off and fall

So that I can pick you up

They rose and shook

I barely stood

They rose and shook

The blood off

The objects we’re locked in

Immobile and violent

Just fewer like that

You were afraid

It seems the last 40 minutes

Were spent leading up to this

You’re just a stranger in a t-shirt to me

Time wore holes in my memory

What have you given

Just to be able

To get closer

To being alive with nothing left

But this song

And the end of it?

You believe in something watching over

I think they have a sick sense of humor

As quickly as it happens, they forget

Then, it happens again

And again, and again, and again

You cry at the news, I just turn it off

They say there’s nothing we can do, and it never stops

You believe in a God watching over

I think the world’s fucked up and brutal

Senseless violence

With no guiding light

I can’t live like this

But I'm not ready to die

The world is a beautiful place

But we have to make it that way

Whenever you find home

We’ll make it more than just a shelter

If everyone belongs there

It will hold us all together

If you’re afraid to die

Then so am I