Confession

My poetry is not all sunshine and rainbows
It’s torrential downpours
With lightning strikes
And uprooted trees
Tornadoes ripping through neighborhoods

It’s the grief of my mother
The broken heart of my father
The pain of my sister
The loneliness of my friend
The helplessness of a child
The petulance of demons
And the wrath of god

It’s the dying rivers
And barren land
It’s acid rain
On a factory farm
In the middle of a heatwave

Blazing songs of forest fires
And singed limbs
Of flowers that will never bloom
And poisoned seeds

It’s the trauma of the spirit
That was broken by her own
I speak for the forgotten gods
And the ones still sold

And the cries of hungry children
And the dejection of ancestors
And lost languages
And fake rituals

It’s the distant roar of tanks
And death by long distance missiles
The chorus of empty sympathy from the other side of the world
And the deafening silence right after

It’s brothers killing brothers
Over stolen thrones
And queens versus concubines
And disposable lovers

It’s the greed of one man
And the cowardice of many
It’s gang wars and violence
And blinding power trips

And it’s the stench of dead bodies
Buried in the backyard
Of a disputed property
Guarded with miserable suffering
By the wretched winners

It’s the trauma of forced entry
The bare truth of a gun to the head
Of abused children
And regretful priests

I speak for the sold land
And circus lions
Of filthy streets
And abandoned temples filled with junkies

Don’t come looking for more
I don’t think this gets any better
Unless you dare
To deal with all of it.