Recognizing insignificance
Pale life whimpers on
A useless nihilist
Awash in self-righteous callow

Clinging to borders for definition

In the face of the same void
Rejoice in the act of creating meaning
Live as a fortress to empathy

Behead the rabid fascist spectre
In the name of those who cannot abandon hope

Embrace, be consumed as we all wait to be
By the same earthen womb

We worship a throne of decadence
We kiss the hands as they hold us down

Brutality made just through apotheosis of economy
Bitter pain made righteous through politic

In a world of false tales
Set us free if we obey
Bring us joy in our toil

Exposed desires
Reveal constitutions of machines

Our wants, our desperations
For comfort, for satisfaction

In each other and within ourselves

Whether by pedagogy or wired interior;
Desires must destroy as they move through the currents

To dream one must first know terror
To rebuild one must first create ashes

Pawned off, unwanted
What of what I've been given?
What of love shown?
I want a definition

Pawned off, unwanted
I always wished I wasn't here

It's easy for a hollow man
To play a role

Fill me up
Write a prescription

A moment clear
Clawing towards a hole

History gave us the world
On a pedestal erected in blood
An unyielding presence that weighs us down
Like a nightmare on undeserved bodies

What comfort is worth these lives?
What greed is worth the starvation?
The Earth lay rotting in our decadence
Its rewards only masks the scars

We hide in consumption
And fuel certain death

Weep into a cradle of concrete
No embrace from a callous caste
Each nearby step a whisper
"How did we get like this?"

The hollow space between mouth and eyes
The personal, soaked in piss and blood

Do we weigh worth as where we end?
A few careless steps off
Thought mediated by self-interest
In truth, a salve for an insensate need

Tell me again
"I deserve this"
As if any of us have control

Less inspired every day
Every limb a wasted opportunity
A mocking call of "you could"
A sore collection of flesh
Given the world and I can't stop
Picking its scabs

Dry my hands
Split my skin

Open wound to experience
Heat will return
But in a cool breeze
Standing feels like living

Seeds will grow
Life goes on

Pulled apart at the seams by threads
Caught in gears, set in motion
by long dead hands

Ignorant of consequence
Apathetic to consequence
Devoid of consequence

Conflating capital with greatness
And power with justice
And the lust of men
With the will to be righteous

Burned alive as fuel
Consumed unaware in the furnaces

Of great machines
Of just machines
Of holy machines
Of meaningless factories

Chewing teeth in our dreams
Turning gears when we wake

Tear me apart that I may come together
Break my brittle bones and grind them into dust

The self is a reflection against the other
defined by an abstraction

We procrastinate confrontation

We retain tumors
Best cut and left to die

External oppression turned inward
Eventually these binds become my own
The self a festering rot

Hopeful release
The lure of change,
an unlit candle
Leave your skin
on the sidewalk

Face the oncoming light
Bathed in the glow of the moment
Only without may the body be liberated