More Than Skin Deep

Dropping things

Losing things

Forgetting things

Like normal except

Now I have something else to acknowledge   

For failing and not being able to figure

Out how to set things right again

As if they were

Ever 

Right, I mean

Or if “spellcheck” knows what language

I think in

Live in

Write in

How does someone decide

To fight for something they don’t

Believe in

At risk of their mortal soul 

How does one recover from internal

And external wounds that heal

Like season changes

Raggedy music

Broken English

Abstract art that would tell

Plain truth if such a thing existed

Instead we create art that fights for us

Because we need original lies if

We’re gonna get out alive

My life aches for something other

Than the space ship we’re on that’s headed

Toward oblivion without plans for everyone’s survival

Space is the place for the super rich

Others (who can’t earn their keep)

Will likely be left behind

And if you don’t horn it

It won’t come out of your life

That’s what the dead said

Because that’s what they needed

To know to go

Early enough to arrive in time

To connect with the right ghosts

At the right time

Is it better to know what to say

Or how it should sound

How you sound asking that

What you mean by that

Whachu talkin’ bout

And what’s up wit dat

Yeah I know them peoples

I’m one of um

What’s your problem wit dat

I thought so

Let’s move on

I just talked to a bicycle deliveryman

Who said “man I work from seven

In the morning til’ ten at night and I’m

So tiered right about 

right about now”

I replied “yeah I don’t do physical work

But I work hard

I’m a writer”

“Oh I want to be writing but I can’t

take time, I try but…” he said
 

Don’t assume you have to take time

It’s already yours when you make it” 

“But I don’t know the correct grammar

And punctuation and stuff”

“Yeah,” I said “keep using lame excuses like that and

You’ll talk yourself out of writing everyday”

Without punctuation is a style and

Grammar is political

We make time or it makes us

Into people suffering for nothing