Business as usual
It’s cool
I saw Aaron self-immolate
Seconds after waking
The sketch of dreams still aching
Like recent scars,
These dreams more and more redundant
As they age- sequels and trilogies of repressed
Memories.
Snapshots - reels - dropping like bombs
Shooting
Stars,
Successive like
TikToks
time keeps ticking
I drink my coffee, get dressed,
Drive to school where I teach
Twelve year old drug dealers,
Fourteen year old moms,
and everything is
Nice,
By design,
Business as usual.
And what is reason? And what is love? And what is life?
I can see so much death
On my TV and am allowed
No,
I’m encouraged,
No
I’m being forced - or else -
To keep on living,
Laughing,
Loving
(the good old American way)
It’s easy when
The names have no faces,
And the faces have no names,
It’s so nice to be
Desensitized.
Assata said:
“For a lot of people in this country,
People who live in other places have no faces. And this is
The way the U.S. government wants it to be.”
But who cares?
Bombs are crashing somewhere,
But in my backyard it’s
always green.
Birds flying high
Business as usual
And I’m feeling good
The sun’s fangs announce
Another great day in this beautiful empire
I see a story on my instagram:
“Happy Independence Day America, and another
Thursday to the rest of the world.”
Fuck yeah
I don’t care whose freedom is defaced
With my tax dollars
I feel so safe,
So soothed by the sounds of explosions,
The smell of fresh sulfur,
Sparks like loose shrapnel,
Everything so loud and impressive,
successive like
TikToks, shooting
Stars
Children’s dangling brains,
Babies with no heads, no anesthesia
People who live in other places
have no faces
Time keeps ticking
Good morning
I am still alive
Over one hundred
Over one hundred thousand
Over one hundred thousand and eighty
Over one hundred thousand and eight six
is a conservative estimate
(These figures are old now)
A black teacher colleague tells me
“I want to care like that, but I really just don’t”
It’s cool
Why would you?
Oppression is the normal state of things,
We settle for scraps,
We can watch a genocide
Deny facts.
Seconds after I wake
I see a man so tortured
He no longer recognizes his daughter
Eyes wide, traumatized
“I’m so scared,
Please come,”
Hind’s voice is a receding wave
I dream of drowning.
But I’m desensitized.
It’s nice.
From the river to the sea is
“Over there”.
not real to me.
Business as usual.
Am I fucking dreaming?
Free
Free
Palestine.
