I here stand up to defend myself,
with my every twisting thought
bearing its mark on your complaint-
It is time eyes are plucked out
to be placed into better places
and gaze into the hazy distance
of memories undamaged by trappings
of hollow rites carried out on pavements
of porn posters on small confused beds.
It is true that your marks define me,
my defiance infuriates the helpless child
within me who only I can preserve,
unlike you who have torn it away,
choked it to death with skin cream
on your now creased but healthy cheeks
where craters still cast pale shadows,
a barren pockmarked landscape,
leftover from the battle against acne.
I have seen the future set for me,
in my brother who drives two cars to work
and always gets the legal secretary’s number.
I have to be a first class actor every day,
but the child in me shouts against it,
and forces my hand to turn the volume on.
It is time that this war is brought to end, and the pains providing for “angst-ridden-maniacs who mash-buttons-and-stare-wide-eyed-at-multicoloured-screens like-zombies-high-on-crack-who-know-no-math-and-break-the-law” will be let free to speak, to grow, and plant a new tree.
And so I tell you-
together we have dissembled bombs,
drove rockets into outer heaven,
brought down the walls dividing us:
Why can’t we just stand and defend what our youngsters would have us die for?
Why should we just escape through these flaming woods on motorbikes?
And leave it all to burn in offices
While the moon we yearned to reach for aeons
crumbles behind us,
reminding us of its craters?