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