atypical year

atypical year

Normal                    doesn't live here

 

the    air    it  breathes demands

                 clear

 

bitter inhales and sticky details

expunge this atmosphere

 

here norm terminates torn and ravaged

and chokes on its monochrome song

take me, take me

don't forget they make me

industrialized     born just the same

corporate made to please

please                    please

saturated with benevolence    dipped in greed on our knees

sent to feed the system and innately

follow the wisdom of our fathers

don't bother       talking         what is true

we swallow only conditioned seeds

         we pray   &   we need    &    we feed

on kosher and monotony

autonomy tastes of lies and all these whys

only publicize a life of too many tries 

and fails and really who needs the wail

of unspoken reality

our totality is built to withstand 

the fragments of the tangents  the tumult  the trite


existence of those insistent 

                                 on being more

                                                 than just being


those atypical deviants

              creating content vulnerable  raw

demanding the grime of these times and

designating different 

as the real that we can feel

gambling with the stakes  of pain 

and any emotion

odious       it leaves them    all broken

       and alive

 

we are the conventional

the average the habitual

crying take me take me

a life not lived can not break me

 

 sputter the words

                 we can't respire

our breath hitches in



threatening to expire         right                here

and now           this unbalanced atmosphere 

writhes with life

not our static air     space stagnant with stale everydays and always

accepted     perfected mask of

we are the norm

                      but we can't breathe     

                                       here

 

and when there           is here

 

and the air     i strive       survive       thrive

off this oxygen of change         never the same

live day to day                              it isn't thin

or smoked                   or alien

and my lungs aren't at all flailing

             take a heaping deep one

                                               and begin


to accept the gorgeous sin

of something different

not molded or folded to fit

                                     but exploding within

 

despite a year lost

to fear and questions of sane

            remain

don't bother to explain

       just breathe          know    need

nothing of daily nothing of mundane

questions of self              health        ordained

the peculiarities     the norms of society

raise a brow to 

muscle a frown to

                 serve to remind 

that this time

I can breathe       no matter          how thin

how thick       the empty 

                                                space of air              lives in

 

know the despair of suffocation

was just education and a few ruler slaps scars that are art and décor  simply another door

 to open or shut     walk through or     deny

 

no matter where my heart pumps

 the humming breath

     this 

          is where 

I'm meant to be.