The Soldier
I wrote this when I was laid off years ago from the IRS. But it seems to appy to the great recession today. Many of us are laid off because of other people’s greed. It made me angry I re-wrote parts of it.
The sun looks like the size of a quarter
how can it keep me warm?
You have gone far away
I’m always tirelessly putting quarters into the phone
to talk to you
There are alot of people where I work
and the more there are the lonelier I get
sheer volume makes me seem insignificant
now I know what soldiers know
sheer volume makes your life worth less
you are beneath yourself when you are a
number and the numbers are skipped over
so quickly to get to the next and then the next
and pretty soon the numbers they blur into the
thousands just to drive a point into our skulls
it makes it easier to look at death certificates at work
it’s part of the routine processing the dead like processing
food and burying the dead becomes a chore after awhile
and no one weeps anymore and you only weep
when it’s the guy next to you
then again he was always just a number
and you realize that the world seems more and more
like a slaughterhouse filled with living things ready to die
and there are the butchers everywhere waiting
for the opportunity to turn you into something
artificial and watching people lose themselves like soldiers
is no longer disturbing to me
everything is de-sensitized and we are all like condiments
we make death easier to swallow
we make death taste easier
and we put labels on people to make them less
pretty soon the man next door is my enemy
and it is easier to to lose an enemy than a friend
the world is quiet again because the world is loud again
the louder it gets the quieter it grows inside
sometime I pulled my plug from them
I don’t register what they register
we don’t get the same jokes
I’m only a human out of service
beating myself up against a world installed
to brutalize me when I think it was meant to save me
no one but God can me or save you or save them
salvation from this madhouse doesn’t come when we let
ourselves dismantle each other like mere mannequins
when the recognition of fate has given me permission
to disassemble the man next to me and with lies we pull
people apart
standing me up is apart of the destruction code
I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from this dream
I don’t recognize this window in my room anymore
I weep whenever I don’t see my mother walking down
the long corrider of my dreams and I wept when her
mother walked to heaven and didn’t take me
I wept when my mother thrust me out of her body years ago
I shivered when my own daughter left my body totally alone
with nothing but fluids and I was dehydrated of life
without a tenant in my womb
sex is like that an empty nest after he leaves
and leaves and leaves and perpetually leaves
I can’t comprehend how we came apart without ever
really being together?
I wanted love to be different from war
but it is only war with a moment of peace
in between the slaps my parents had babies
and babies are supposed to be treaties
but became hostages instead
I don’t want to be a soldier anymore
I never wanted to wear camoflauge in the middle of summer
I couldn’t describe the horror living behind my eyes
I remember being told to forget and was told to go to the other
room
I was always told to disappear into the woodwork
I was always told to roll with the punches
learning to take sides made me a two edged sword
everytime I cut someone I really only cut myself
watching battles over and over turns you into a land mine
I never know when people are going to go off
when you’re going to blow up before my very eyes
I have become unaware what makes me unhappy anymore
I want to remain a spinster
it’s the worst thing having a corpse laying beside you
sleeping beside you doesn’t make us close
I’m closer to the pillow than to you
the pillow talks more to me than you do
sleeping alone lets me sleep without a sword
I need bullets inside my mouth to spit out at a moment’s notice
we keep ourselves loaded to guard ourselves
I guard myself to free myself from the tyranny of men
the tyranny of men is the tyranny of the world
there are chains inside my pupils
corruption is designed by corporate smiles
and your smile hid the fact that I was laid off today
I wiggled wildly like the proverbial worm on a hook
people like us are the bait of the world
we are humiliation struck with a red hot poker in the face
we suck on government promises so hard
as sucking on dicks
and I bit my tongue from the bad taste
and I’m still bleeding six months later
when did they amputate the gangrene from us?
from the arm of the country? from the heart of the world?
I am on a ledge ready to jump from the top floor,I am between falling and hitting the pavement below, and fuck there is no net
and my family jumped with me, and we are falling between the spaces of having to live, stuck in a tent town in the mid-west, we are falling still and stuck between the spaces of getting sick and having to eat, and still we haven’t hit the pavement, and we are selling our blood, and I’m going to put my kidney on the black market, let them cut deep into me to keep myself from falling, and the spaces of falling is the anticipation of hitting the cement and having my brains hit, and knowing my skull will break wide open like a pinata, and let the vultures eat me, let the flies surround me, and let them scavege what is left of the house that was towed from us like a car
once you’ve gone over the side you’re no longer with them, we are the ghosts, we are the fatalities, and we are the casualties of a system gone bad, we are on the inside of the rotting fruit trying to dig our way out, there is nothing to keep us inside but our pride
Everytime I was told I wasn’t wanted I wanted to break the veins open
keeping rage in check is harder than it seems
people are blowing themselves up because they can’t control all the buttons going of at once
we are running to put out the fire that’s burning us up on the inside
running is the wrong thing to do when it consumes the body
I know everytime you run away you run away from someone that needs you
someone is left alone and I don’t want to leave you alone,even if I do it cradling my left limb in my right arm
even if my arms are longer than my legs
even if I have no eyes my hearing will have to be enough
somehow my good crutch will have to be strong enough to hold us both
good soldiers don’t desert
and the good ones go down with alot of gunfire bursting the organs open and it seems more like a celebration than a death
that’s how I want to go down with small quarters in my eyes
then I will know the sun didn’t abandon me
even though you did
the world goes away everyday, and no one gets involved
and no one is expected to
someone will come along to pull the dog tags off
I don’t want to be the one to put them inside of the mouths of the dead
the dead don’t know that the living walk around with similar mouths torn off from faces without understanding and the older I get
the more I learn to live with such an expression
and shock comes hard like a lightening bolt without a place to hide and without notice
run to the bomb shelter deep into the earth like running back into your mother’s womb
re-attaching your umbilical cord to me
don’t misunderstand that love isn’t attachment but detachment
and letting go is cutting me from my mother
copyright2009misfit1965
Reynaldo
as always misfit your works speak volumes of the powerful and strong writing skills your pocess as a writer and as a sweet and gentl;e soul….love your work…..some of it is dark but riveting….brilliant job Misfit….cheers
misfit1965 replied
Oh you are too kind Reynaldo. You are my biggest fan. I am also a fan of your brilliant work. Take care, and thanks so much for your belief in my work. I believe in your work too! Will visit your gallery soon. misif