if you were healthy
we wouldn’t be speaking of unhealthy choices that you make, which should be changed
if you were beautiful
we wouldn’t be speaking of how to improve upon your ugliness
if you were smart
we wouldn’t consort over methods to increase your consumption and processing of knowledge
if you were tall
we wouldn’t query of what it would be like to not be short and how different the view would be and the feel of air
if we did speak on these matters
it wouldn’t be because you suffered from their inexistence
it would be matters of vanity and the self-esteem and obsessions which blossom from that vane tree
so again
if I were equal
we wouldn’t quibble over matters of my inequality and programs geared to bring about better equality and inclusion
if America wasn’t racist
we wouldn’t debate over ways to solve the racial and problems of inequities and injustice
if we were all seen as human beings
than color would not have been invented nor a context of description and qualification
so if I was an American
then how many Americas are there? because our experiences just seem so different and far apart, yet you only speak from the America of your own view and experience and seem perfectly content with the fact that your experience isn’t the same as mine
boy, privilege sure looks good
not only do you get to feel and see things better
but you get to decide how I should see feel and experience them as well, and also create the titles which it falls under
if I had a mind like yours, in a body like mine, it’d be called insane
if not coping, compliant, complicit, conforming, and cognitively dissonant, distant, different, distraught, and destroyed
I’m not a human being
I’m not an American
I’m not equal
and justice is not my reality
I’m inherently sober
I can’t buy expensive hallucinogens
I just don’t have the privilege required to believe in things that don’t exist
I don’t have the privilege of obliviousness
I don’t have the privilege to believe in ghosts and other things that are not there
that are not real
nor see them as different than as they appear
humanity is as illusory as objects in my rearview mirror
I can see other ways, but to see it another way
that effect would be of a drug, a drug of choice
and you’ve been high on privilege
hallucinating from the gateway of denial
and I guess I’m just unhappily sober
a bummer and Debbie downer I suppose
no wonder I don’t believe in American Dreams
I’m not high enough, I can’t see them
so pass that shit
I wanna get busy doing nothing
and feeling good ignoring other people’s suffering too!
damn it must be nice up there?!
one can only hope
and cope
or get a rope,
mope
or get some dope
I need a break from reality anyway
Trauma
a bugs life
if i could speak
id tell you
dont bug me
bug off!
im not trying to bother you
im just being me
thats all i can be
being who, and what
i was designed to be
my purpose is no less
because i cant speak
because you think im weak
my purpose is no less
because you can swat at,
and step on me
because you are bigger
and more powerful than I am
we have the same source!
i am beautiful too
i even got a few wives
and baby mama drama
but i let them and my kids be
i dont bug them
why cant you give me the same courtesy
your life would be a lot different if i werent around
you just cant see it yet
but if you keep messing around
one day you’ll see
and by that time
it may be too late
you cant see what you do not appreciate
you cant take back a life you kill
though my body my paint the soles of your shoe
i still have a soul too
and my life matters as well
i feel you minorities
my black people and natives
my hispanics and asians
hell, even my women!
well until yaw start killing us!
perpetuating the cycle
where does it stop?
all life matters right?
or is killing and destruction,
just human nature?
but i get it, i see where you coming from
we all see
monkey see, monkey do
when you spend a lifetime
feeling so small
you look for anything to step on
to prop yourself up
as to not forever feel like the least
and lowest forms of life
i almost would embrace your swat
or shoe
if i didnt care for my own life as well
and if i ever stung or bit you
man i was just fighting fire with fire
so you would know that i am here
and i exist as well
i needed you to respect that
can you dig that?
because when we swarm or protest
fighting for our right to live
and to not be bothered
protecting our lives
yaw get all up in arms
throwing chemicals at us as well
to get us to disperse
but we cant go to jail
there is no equal medium
so we give our all in our fight
because its all we have to give
so its all or nothing
im telling you,
i get it
so get me, too
What is Philosophy
if we exercised moderation
the veil would be lifted
from our over-stimulated senses
and sense of reality
we take everything too far
we don’t question enough
think enough
believe enough
see enough
so we question irrationally
think irrationally
believe irrationally
perceive irrationally
therefore,
our speech is irrational
and words create reality
so we experience irrationality
and feel as though,
emotions are irrational
so questions and assertions-
which threaten the paradigmatic thought
are-
“conspiracy theories”
dismissed as extreme claims
antagonistic to status quo
because some take it too far
and their extremes
distract from the profound questions that matter
the questions unheard
and unasked
because questions
have now become
social terrorism
but every now
was created again
by terrorism
Jefferson’s Reflection
reflecting on priorities
they evolve
but rarely change
constituting priorities
starting with article 1
implementing priorities
written in section 2
compromising priorities
black’s shall be 3/5th’s a person
results of priorities
property owned and named
at the beginning,
justifying the means-
identity and self-determination lost-
in the end
priorities of a constitution
stated before the bill of rights
which govern,
and promises our lived experience
so when you say,
“the founding fathers”
for some reason
I don’t feel like a loved child
rather a step child
a bastard
or one spawn of wedlock
or tryst
but I should love this document so
this parchment you deem too holy to change wholly
to which one of it’s writers said
“I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just…”
I am not lawless
my being had to be rewritten into law
from those above the law
I am outside of the law
rebelling from my in laws
so when I loot riot and protest
I’m just expressing your projections
imitating you
mirrored reflections and sentiments
spawn of you
claiming this land
renaming it
once stolen pillaged and plundered
but what goes around…
as they say
And, they say
“God is good,
All the time”
so let the church say…
well yaw know
Whose Feelings are These?
I don’t know
if
if
if
if I have e
if I have emo
if I have emotions!?!
or am I just selfish
would I rather you feel for me
feel what I am incapable of feeling
so I can experience what it may look like through you
and then I can repeat the action
or maybe I don’t want the weight
the weight of feeling alone
and so I want you to feel like I do
I want you to feel with me
so you can share this weight I bear
because I can not possibly carry the responsibility
I do not wish to will myself to hold it all
is guilt an emotion?
what of avoidance?
or impassiveness or apathy?
is the intense desiring of love,
and companionship an emotion
or is it too, selfish?
is desire itself, or lust, an emotion?
or is it too, selfish?
is longing or loneliness an emotion?
or is it too, selfish?
is jade or expectations an emotion?
or is it too, selfish?
is empathy an emotion?
or is it just mimicking?
if I feel what you feel, because you feel
is it what I feel?
or is it my desire to feel what another feels,
because I can not
or do not feel it in myself?
is wanting to feel an emotion?
or am I just addicted to wanting to feel?
is feeling, addicting?
what of being numb?
I
I
I
I just don’t know anymore
Living Hell
imagine
if hell is your worst day
repeated over and over
and life is a prison
encased in enclosures
and dying is inconvenient
denied any closure
then when I die
I’ll be living the same living hell
that I lived inside prison
so death is
what I live daily
over and over
Wardlow, Russell #78756
sentenced to a Living Hell