How does one merely object to corruption?

When all that would amount to is an exhalation

A statue is made to crumble

But a statement is eternal

 

I’m alone again

I didn’t know loneliness like this could exist

In my “home country”

Where I hide from even myself

 

The insidious sensationalist ethos

Entwined with noxious entitlements

Layered in chemical chaos

Wrapped in morbid malevolence

 

My lungs do not breathe hypocrisy

My heart does not pump oil

I cannot thrive in an idiocracy

My soul cannot help but recoil

 

I grasp my index finger

As a tiny child would cling to their mother’s leg

Feeling my own pulse

Like a calming rhythm of her safe love

 

I feel as if I’m living on a red cartograph

And the only thing I’ve had to brace myself

Are the very few and far between

Blue toothpicks

 

The unshakable base layer of toxic red

As contiguous and intact

Since the very first colonies of religious and racist entitlement

Falsely took hold

 

And now, even the toothpicks are purple

 

Stolen, my energy and love mustn’t also be

Transmuted into bombs and bullets

Tearing apart our neighbors’ families and erasing cultures

Killing our sisters, daughters and mothers with pious neglect

 

They shall not receive a penny of my tax revenue

They shall not know the warmth of my blood

They shall not earn a drip of my sweat

They will never see a drop of my tears

 

I categorically reject their normalized bigotry

With every single fiber of my moral being

I forsake their weaponized animosity

And refuse to ever be contributing