dear america,

you are a fucked up crackwhore.
you are bleeding
your purse is open
and your dimes are spilling out onto this
cold street

you are drugged up and pissed off
so you take more drugs
to kill your anger and anything else that comes in your way

you are crazy for those dollars
that you would kill for or fuck for
or die because of

america, you are breathing
but barely.

hold on to life
dry your eyes
fix your stockings
and go back to work

go back and make a nickel
and get a dime bag-
owe the dealer
fuck the dealer

deal is done.

on a warm august

it was 119 degrees in phoenix when she left
monsoons filled that late august afternoon, in flashes
that seemed to start and finish, doubts that
rise and diminish

ema didn't mean to run
her heart was just too big to sit in a stagnant city
all alone with hearts and minds that couldn't challenge
that sweet ema's dreams

he spent his first forty days in bed
quiet and somber as fall came
and squandered his dreams of marriage in the spring

far away ema wandered seas, mountians, and straits
her heart grew faster in ways and shapes
she hadn't thought her creator had cast her

he started to wake up earlier in the morning
sleep less and tried being alive again
it was late november- calls and pictures
couldn't send her- all the love,
hard times- he felt

she left it all in the desert, he left it in a letter
and posted it for all her senders
and then hung his heart up to dry like clay

who left this all to poor ema brown
who just came to learn and sing
she came with a sticker-
'let love flicker'
and slowly you peeled it away

4/4/68

they shot me dead before i was done
they shot me cold, against my hearts hard will
i've said what needed to be said
for they can't kill spoken word with iron

this skin that i have never let stop me before, bleeds-
crimson life on pale white concrete

and i am my demise

strain to keep these lids slivered
maybe my dreams will slip through
so scared to be ripped from this dirt
i've sown with seeds, burnt before the harvest

all may not be lost, but i am

these dreams i've dreamt in color
end in red blood
in a black and white world