the right words

 

pockets of sleep & pools of rage and

if the poem is left unfinished

then it won’t need to have any meaning

 

if the mountain is sacred

a massacre is inevitable

 

a blanket of lies to cover it up

 

you map them out in your head,

one for your husband, one

for the children, and i am left here

without enough pieces to make a whole

 

i am afraid, always

 

i breathe in, then out, but

can’t get enough air

 

what we become in the end are our own

prisons, our own prisoners,

our own priests

 

days rise up like clouds above the

hills, like the

threat of brilliant blue skies

 

heat without warning & a blanket of haze

and i am there at the front door with

flowers and with lies and

i am godless

 

this story is a dead end,

just like any other

 

we are dogs fucking on floors

of broken glass

 

we are poets

waiting to be blindfolded

 

waiting to be marched out

onto some bloodsoaked field and

shot because the power of words,

of course, lies in the power of fear

 

because the weakest are always

the easiest to kill

 

all it takes from you

is a little goddamned effort