To You These Streets Belong (An Ode to Rebels and Misfits)

The Renegade on their soap box,
The Misfit, the Lunatic, the Rebel,
Be guaranteed, they don’t follow the flocks
Engrained, from birth, with a need to raise hell
The spiked mohawk with combat boots,
The Comrade, the Patriot --
To no authority do they lend their salutes.
Among them the timid and meek find unsettling disquiet.

Unwavering, they draw lines in the sand,
Liberty, respect: their only demand.
Their stern faces and bright eyes do few admire
Broken glass and upheaval is what they inspire.
Starting riots in the street,
No opponent too shy to meet
And as the gas burns their eyes,
Still again and again they rise --
And though shackled, still they fight.
Oh, what a beautiful sight.
Even as history would call them great men,
Cries for their heads ring again and again.

Unafraid, paving roads few dare to take,
Just in a desperate attempt
To dead and sleeping souls awake
Continually met with the fiercest contempt,
From those necks that were spared the very same rope
From which they will inevitably dangle and choke.

Dissenters, Heretics and Mavericks all
Carrying on weary shoulders
The weight of a world ready to fall
Doomed like Greeks to bear impossible boulders
Of responsibility and right,
Striving and struggling to bring us forth into day
Then having to watch as we turn back to night
Freely entering our prisons, and decay.

Never do they indulge in momentary rest,
Feet tired, knuckles bleeding from their quest,
Always ready and waiting to rearm
Tuned to the call of that perpetual fire alarm --
Honor won’t let them stand aside as it burns,
So called to a job that offers no returns
No voice falters in the singing of their song
Thus unto them will these streets always belong.

I alone will celebrate them if no one else dares,
And put them in ink,
If no one else cares
Where death cannot touch them or cause them to sink.
If I alone must carry their flag and remember their feats
Then Death to Tyrants will I proclaim
Or shout in the streets
Tread Not on Me and mar not my name.

Drifter

An anchor,
To hold me steady
That’s what I desire.
I am filled with helium,
And might drift skyward,
And away with the breeze.
A strong wind might take me beyond
The pale edges of the clouds--
Too far to ever return.
I am only floating,
Ungrounded,
How do you anchor down a ghost?
I don’t want the oblivion.
I want to remain.
Solid ground.
Cold earth.
Stay.

Dear Patriot

So long as men can breathe, and eyes can see
The tree of Liberty must be renewed.
For else she dies beneath our apathy,
And withers in our silence crude.
She cries for tyrant heart-flesh -- still-beating,
For only then can she reign in the West.
Fail and you will aid in her defeating,
Fragile Nation’s hope at her feet does rest.
But woe to you that does not heed her call,
Your fates do share the umbilical link.
Death you will not be able to forestall --
Dear Patriot, all rests now on the brink.
So shy not away from this your one task,
Or no life, no liberty may you ask.

Repeat the Following Steps.

Because uncertainty’s a bitch
Hold the door for the person behind you,
Read a book
And never take any shit.

Because uncertainty’s a bitch
Always make sure you match,
Be on time
And never work for cheap.

Because uncertainty’s a bitch
Handwrite your letters,
Break the rules
And be forever authentic.

Because uncertainty’s a bitch
Don’t give yourself over to apathy,
Get a job
And know when to shut up.

Because uncertainty’s a bitch
Take responsibility for your choices,
Write your life
And tell people what you think.

Reflections of a Someone

He's sitting with his back to the room, and the other customers, along, next to the window. Is it uncertainty I detect beneath the pressed shirt and hipster jeans? No companion sits across from him, no stranger lingers to talk. His drink, not coffee like I first guessed, but tea, grows tepid and dark. He sits hunched, folded. Why come here, when the night is falling upon his office hours? There is someone to go home to, I have seen her smiling out from his laptop screen. So why does he linger? So forlorn and exposed he looks, I am ashamed to see him like this and I look away. The smooth pattern of his Southern-tainted voice draws my attention again to the back of him. A student has stopped to seek his advice about a paper or perhaps a grade -- it matters not, they are the same. I cannot help but wonder what secrets this grown up city boy hides. Too many, to be sure, for they bubble up out of him even as he tries to ignore them. Black jeans and scuffed black chucks speak to his revolt, while his button-collar shirt reminds us all of his New York-Second life. But it's the mild manner, the soft speech and those intense blue eyes that speak to those Southern boy roots. Silver strands of hair remind me of his age, from which his youthful face distracts. He reminds me of someone I used to know, but aged to a kind of perfection. Perhaps this explains why I am compelled to jot down his story. But he sits sipping his tea -- unaware of the lines being penned behind his back. He knows not the pages I pull from him, borrow, steal. I am a thief, to steal inspiration from him. I, like all of my kind, write his story without permission, twisting the facts to suit my wants. When I look back up from my scribbling, he is gone. He will return, to be sure. campus is too small for him to avoid my pen for long.

There is something vaughly unnerving about watching a sunset -- almost as if you're witnessing the world restart itself. As teh sun sinks down into its phonix-like death, it bleeds vivid pinks and oranges, illuminating the world in a pale glow. The lingering rays cast doubt upon all the lofty thoughts, petty problems and arrogant ideas we hold in such high esteem during the day-lit hours. It all fades and you fade with it, reborn once more from the darkness.

Lonely.

It happens when you come back. You close and lock the door for the night and then it hits you. All day you drive the ache away, shove it so far down you're practically walking on it in your shoes. But when you come back and only silence greets you, it climbs right back up around your throat.
You turn on the T.V., play music -- anything to fill the screaming silence. But it doesn't help. The distraction never lasts.
Nights are the worst.
You don't go to bed until at least 12:30, even though you're exhausted, because the thought of lying in bed, unable to sleep instantly, staring at the celing and listening to that peircing lack of another person's steady breathing terrifies you.
The darkness always makes it worse.
And nothing ever makes it better.

I couldn’t have been more than eight as I sat on the edge of my bed that cold fall evening. Though the windows hadn’t been opened for a good month, a fly had somehow found its way into the house, its confusing journey leading it to my window sill. I had been playing with a small figurine of a young girl dressed in yellow, with her flowing plastic skirts containing a hollow space beneath them. No feet though.
Before I had noted the presence of the fly I had been absent mindedly walking the doll up and down the length of the window sill on its imaginary feet. Up and down, back and forth. I noticed the fly on the fifth loop.
Its transparent little wings were sleepy with cold, making it bump into things and follow and erratic pattern of flight, almost as if it was drunk. As I watched the tiny insect struggle I developed an unexplainable disgust for it. For its tiny black eyes and its hair-like legs. For its sputtering wings and its utter helplessness.
I moved in on it slowly, and in its confusion it made no effort to escape. I was close enough to it that I could see my breath softly blowing it across the surface of the window sill. I waited.
And then with a quick movement of my hand I snapped the figurine’s hollow skirts over the fly, trapping it beneath. Minutes past before I slowly lifted the edge of the figurine again. The fly didn’t move much, a few twitches of its small wings, and I enclosed the fly in its plastic tomb. The figurine smiled back at me.
Two days later I released the body of the fly into the trashcan next to my bed.

It's the feeling I was sure I would never have. I didn't realize until a day after the end what it felt like to breathe again. I was like an addict, so afraid of the withdrawl that I never even tried. I thought that I wouldn't know how to own my self without you my beloved crutch. But you were a crutch. I didn't need you to walk. There's nothing wrong with my feet. You abused the author in me. You let me write fiction of the worst kind -- you fed me lines right out of your hand. But you weren't in the ending. I am not going to write for you anymore. I'm closing the book, and the lack of the ending will be its ending. There will be closure in not knowing. I don't want to know. I want to know a life after this. I want to know a life seperate from this. I want to know life without you. I know life without you. I am not allowing you to keep me chained up. Tied down. Caged. If you want to live at the bottom then do it. But I will not go with you. Not this time.

Not this time.

Let go of my hand. Shrink away into your darkness. Take your filth. Take your lies. Take your weakness.
I am stronger. I will not be sacrficed for your lack of courage.

Not another word for you.

This is the end of you.