Toxins

I've been imprisoned for 8,205 days.
I was born here and I fear
I shall never leave.

Instead of iron bars,
There is a force field.
I can roam
Within the barbed wire
From sea to shining sea.

Where is the freedom
From an upbringing?
Where is the freedom
From a poisoned culture
When every other culture
Has a poison
Of its own?

The cyanide is materialism
Drizzled on our food
We've grown immune
Or at least we live
With it.
We need it.
It's not cyanide;
It's heroin.

Every American is addicted at birth
And breaking free is too hard.
It's who we are.
We are addicts
To our culture.

Move to Asia.
Your sin will follow you.
Move to Antarctica.
You will die
From withdrawal.

"Your want is a need here."
That iPhone. Need.
Those clothes. Need.
That paycheck. Need.
That car. Need.

Have you lived among
The saintly plebeians?
Do you know what it's like
To do without?
To be the receiver
Of charity
Rather than the taker
Of "needs"?

Moths will eat your thirty scarves.
Moths will devour your sweaters.
Time will crush your devices.
And your habits will drain your paycheck.

How can I live in this world
But not be of it
When I can't help but breathe
The toxins?

If I throw my computer
Across the room
And watch it shatter on the wall,
What will I accomplish?
I will crumble to the floor
In sobs.
And then I will piece
My sin back together
As meticulously as it was built
In the factory.
Because that's what addicts do.

Loose my chains.
Take me home.
Please.
I didn't mean to be
A felon.


I've been adding and adding to a giveaway pile in my room. I decided that my three-week-old iPhone should go with it, so I went to the Verizon store and was told it was too late. I'd signed my name in blood, I guess. Later I learned that not all hope was lost, but I still felt the force of the blow. I sobbed all the way home (but held it together when my mother called me) because I felt trapped in a materialism I didn't want, trapped in my sin of an addiction to a device (that will probably remain in some form no matter how much stuff I get rid of), trapped in the regret of my choice to move on into the smartphone world.

When I finally turned on my radio, this Lecrae song was playing and it was so perfect for the moment but it just exacerbated my frustration.

Something is seriously wrong with me. Who cries because they have to have an iPhone? I don't know if I am being incredibly selfish and ungrateful or if I am being valiant in my pursuit of a more minimalistic lifestyle.

Anyway. That's the story behind the poem.


God bless.

Happy Pill

Some pills are over-the-counter.
Some pills are prescription.
Some pills are under-the-table.
But your pill fills the room.

Your pill is a giggle.
Laughter is a drug.
You clown around
To get your hourly fix.

At night you google
"Asphyxiation"
But when someone
Walks in the room,

You grasp at hope.

Where is the joy in a pun?
Where is the joy in a joke?
Where is your joy
When someone else laughs?

The leaves dance green in spring.
They are still robust in summer.
But in autumn they blush
Before they die.

Break your addiction.
The one that no one knows about.
Break your habit.
Quit feeding the snake.

Seek joy, not humor
Or you will die.
Like the leaves
And comedians.

Substitution

I was praying (literally) for inspiration for a poem, as I haven't written anything in such a long time but so wanted to create, give back in some small way, when my dear friend Lexi texted me regarding a decision we've both been facing, and my prayer was answered. This is the result.


Alexis was once in love,
Deeply and passionately.
Sometimes the bright spark
Of sawdust caught aflame
Leads to a steady, lasting blaze.

But it usually vanishes.

With Alexis, things had
to end abruptly.
Her dazzlement remained.

Years later, she flirts unashamed
With the Rockies of Colorado,
With the Smokies of Tennessee.
But their eyes do not glint
In the sunlight
Quite the same way.
Their wisdom
Cannot make her cock her head
The way his could.
Their grins do not flip
Her heart in wild ecstasy.

A gas fireplace could not burn
Her soul comparably.

Surely another can be found!
Surely the good Lord
Created a replacement!

Alexis searches and prays
For a substitute
For the snowy mountain caps of home.

Someone strolls in casually
With a smirk and a wink.
Mountains of bronze,
Skies of azure.

Alexis leans in,
Rests her head,
Ignores the doubt.
Safety nets smell
Like cologne
And gas fires
And hot desert air.

Somehow it happens.
In the night Alexis is unsettled.

In the night Alexis slips away.
He woke up to empty sheets
But does not miss her.

She watches the sunrise to her right
As she drives to who-knows-where.
But the steering wheel knows
Somehow.

Who said truer words
Than Dorothy
When she clicked her heels?

Alexis returns to the one she loved,
The one no one could replace.
Alexis comes home
To the only one
Who could ever be home.

She knocks and he lets her in.
And there she stays.

Gray skies and white mountains
Were never sweeter.
There the fire brightly burns,
Inexhaustible.


God bless.