poem of the day 07.24.15

we live

where you can’t go to the mall

we live where you can’t go to the movies

we live where it’s not even safe enough

to take your kids to school

we live where army bases are fired upon

we live where recruitment centers and churches

are used for target practices

we live in stink and filth and can’t even feed our own

we live where strip malls get turned into scenes of massacres

we live with politicians who take kickbacks from gun lobbies

where the president shakes his head and says we’re facing a reckoning

but then goes and drops drone bombs on kids

we live where people get shot in mosques

where teenagers take their own lives every day

we live with god on our side but not in our hearts

we live where rich athletes can’t even escape the taste of blood

where even actors commit murder

we live with staggering rates of homicide

where we have 4,800 nuclear warheads at the ready

to kill the whole motherfucking world

we live with junkies and violence in mcdonald’s

we live with gun upon gun in wal-mart

where cuckolds take up arms instead of walking away

we live with heavenly exception

we live without guilt or remorse

where babies get caught in the crossfire of humid gang warfare

we live where you can’t go to college

without the fear of maybe getting shot

we live where cab drivers and civilians get plugged in their cars

where food courts and parks are for genocide

we live with mass murder in prison riot gore

we live where mothers kill fathers kill children

then take out half the neighborhood

where gas leaks explode and kill your friends

we live with road rage and vets sleeping on the corner

we live where people go into work and kill their bosses

where even the goddamned nursing homes aren’t safe

we live with uzis in law offices

and handguns in immigration detention centers

where border patrol guards carry machine guns for freedom

we live where people get murdered for the color of their skin

we live in the blood-soaked glare of the world

we live right here in america

where we don’t do a fucking thing about any of it.