I must have been
sick of bad news,
everything to do with breathing
which I’m not good at anyways,
both at the micro level and police ways.
Not good at keeping faith
in a dying bed.

It must have been
her pale soft hues,
the youth really of the role playing,
pretending to be bad
while not lacking the sweet
and raw experience
of being voluntarily led.

That’s not six feet, not ten inches!
Not a mask, not even a fabric
to reduce the invisible things
by thirty three percent!
Not burying the contorted,
the blue, the bored,
the drunk and the well fed!

You did this? Selfishly
endangered the whole town?
Stranger among uniform
and super-symmetric features
advertised on oversized
billboards that shout
what can’t be said.

Parted the thick curtain
only to be blinded
by violent red dots
on the forehead, the lungs,
muscles not used to being
tense in the middle of the night
while your rights are being read.

Integrity, homeland, heave-ho,
control, or lack of empathy for
an organized movement versed in
record highs, reckless,
in heat, falling behind
in payments and manners
and not giving a damn yet.


Jam20