I Am What I Am

Thanksgiving 2021 Poem

I am melancholic 808s

    Psyching up the synths

I am the lighter

    In a sidewalk oracle cipher

The beat

    For a No.2 desktop DJ

        The rush

            In a fallen god’s needle

I am the best bill

    In a beggar’s palm

The purest stone

    In an artist’s charm

I am summer

    Sizzling blood on asphalt

        I am winter    

            Freezing reasons to put masks on

I am a cape

    Without headlights

        And no brake pads

                Stuck in 6th gear

                    In the middle of the night

I am sorry

    I am regret

        I am despair

    Cemented in cold closure

You can sympathize

    But don’t try to read

        Behind these brown eyes
 

I am a backroad bus stop

    On a discontinued route

The isolated intercostal

    With the bridges up

A traumatized highway

    With closed exit ramps
 

I am a moment in time

    Standing as a statue in memory

An enigma outside the dead end 

    Of answer’s street

I am the most underlined page

    In an excessively dog-eared book

The patience biding

    A super nova’s escape

I am the myth

    Legends fear thrives

        Unbound by belief

            Hungry to come alive

I am pain

    I am misery

        I am torture

All under control

    You may look

        But don’t try to pet this soul

I am an angry city

    Throwing a fit 

A prowling park

    With too many blind spots

An unlit alley 

    Behind a corner store

A corner 

    That ignores stop signs

I am the nagging nightmare

    Detesting a despot’s sleep

A stubborn hunger

    In unyielding famine

A drop of the tsunami

    That will flood the flames of hell

A condemned persistence

    Against draconian indifference

I am the spite

    That swings

Pendulum under a dead clock

Don’t rage against my righteous

    Cause I’m not the incarnation of insane

But I am peace

    In the angriest possible way

I am starvation

    I am poverty

        I am oppression 

Tied up in a knot of resistance 

Take a listen

    But don’t bother refuting my witness

I am not the quill

    Signing every sign protesting the misleads

I am the first fist

    Thrown in a rebellion’s riot

The first cigar

    Fuming successful revolution

The breath that persists

    In search of freedom

        The final resolve

            In a quest for meaning 

I breathe equality

    Weep justice

        And sweat abolition

Happiness is my envy

    Mastery my muse

        Apotheosis my goal

    But for life

        I lust

I am destruction 

    Bent on recreation

        An uprising

            Fixed on reform

                And apocalypse 

                    Obsessed with redemption

I am antonym

    And analogy

        I am axiom

            And parable

I am spoken

    And written

        I am dream

            And reality

                    I am

                    Love

                    And

                    I am 

                    Hate

                The same passion 

                Fueled two different ways