Picture Day

Bury me in what I wrote

Gilded robes for those who own what they called homes

Potholes in the roads that led to Rome

There's no I in team, but at night he liked to be left alone

Laundry on the field, encroached past the neutral zone

Coach yelling in my ear like I should've known

Diets of nonviolence and single roses that bleed silence

Silicone throat

Hydrate my clone and be gone

Flirting with time

Kissed the Plain Jane goodnight before I dined with the brothers with nine lives

The teeth spelled connive, but I couldn't surmise the malice

Fall on my sword for the man calloused from lies that breed empty talents

Pluck me out the sea with a talon

I can't seek if you don't wanna be found

Bad defense, get three crowned, only responsive to uncomfortable sounds

A cacophony muffled in the ground growls like it's almost there

Wretched of the earth, plagued by punishments undeserved

Leopold undeterred

Sever the limbs of those that serve

Service with a smile got me nowhere fast

House Of Hunger unwary of the curse

A print of thirst looms as I get busy tuning before we rehearse

The monkey on my back memorized what made me stir

And worse

Got jumped the morning of picture day

Commended me on how I was well behaved

Aviator shades to separate the shame from the righteous way

Ate lunch in the stall, took me a minute to stomach the hay

Grass fed is captive, I'm eating where I used to lay

Can't fly too close to the sun, but no one said anything about the stars

Packed a slingshot and a stone, then I called the Uber

Told him not to be alarmed

Yanked the string with force like a sitar

Brother's head in a glass case to honor the gods

Made me want to cover up the blood

Ditch the tools, can't let them figure out how I beat the odds with no scars

On the way home, greeted with wreaths that fit my image

It's when you can't seem to fix the sickness

It's honor systems in place but pointing fingers when they ask who did it

It's staring at the watchless wrist when they said they'd be here in a minute

It's the empty classroom, light seeps through the vestibule, waiting for the day to finish

And if we don't fight

If we don't resist

If we don't organize and unify

And get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear the exaggerated look of captivity

The stylized look of submission

The bizarre look of suicide

The dehumanized look of fear

And the decomposed look of repression forever and ever and ever

And there it is