Howling

I saw the best minds of my generation sitting, staring.
You saw starvation in the pale faces, yearning,
Hoping, high on wanting to figure out life,
The spaces between your fingers.

I can only see emptiness, placid lips and eyes
Stuck, biting off the hard ends of fingers,
Chewing the cud, chewing.
Click, click, click, click, click.
Next.

You beat.
You beat down, hard, endlessly,
Until those who covered their ears and
Shut their eyes
Couldn’t avoid your screams,
The brightness that you are.

We do not beat.
We sit.
We do not have a reason to
Stand on someone’s
Front lawn,
To sit in their seats and
Question their government.
A government that we call
Our own.


Others have held cold,
Warm guns for us
To sit.
We expect it.
We have our own backs,
We pat ourselves
A congratulations.

Draw the blinds and see the sun:
That is our goal every
Morning.
Slip into a warm bed:
That is our dream every night.
The hole in your shoe, the toe
That has no shelter,
The wind that scratches your back,
The rain that washes you clean,
We know.
We see.
We collect our tears
And dimes
But we shut the doors,
Lock the bolts
And go to our dinners,
To the reality in the boxes.

I,
I am no better.
I sit clicking away
My own madness
With someone else’s
Bank account falling
Instead of
Me.

Inside
I fall too.