How to be small

When I was growing up

I received a BIG education

that began when I was very little

on how to be small

Its an education  

that I am grateful for

about morals and ethics and war

I saw conferedate flag bandanas wrapped around heads

not knowing that they were helmets

I heard kkk propaganda before I even knew 
what those words meant

I learned who we called faggots and who we called niggers

"because that’s who they are", they said

with angry, outstretched, index fingers

No wonder I didn’t tell them

that is who I am

No need to GIVE someone an excuse

to beat the gay away
especially when
some people arent even afforded that LUXURY

I saw the big picture of bigotry

The complex quilting of blame

through piece after piece of incidents and accidents

I watched the spreading of blankets of hate and shame

over patriarchal beds full of self righteousness

and indignation

and incest

Beds slept in safely, snuggly, smugly, every night

Shotguns loaded under the frame

Just in case

and out of sight

It is true what they say
those crazy phychologists
those brainwashing scientists

Prejudice is not innate

It is learned

I learned at that early age

to be disgusted

and irate

which amazingly I maintained
but not exactly in the way they had trained

I listened year after year

to joke after joke

watched time after time

as the masoginistic poked

and the generations of rage 
prodded and choked

the love

right OUT the room

So I followed those instructions

and I left

I pay my own bills

Rent my own room

So no I DON'T have to tolerate this anymore

You cant make me go to Christmas

Even Jesus wouldn’t put up with this SHIT

As I watched my grandparents die

I hoped that this ideology

This pathology

This heart dis-ease

This live-or can't-sir
This brain tomb-er

would go with them

but I am getting an education yet again

that I am not happy about

but privileged to receive

and still grateful for

When my girlfriend stood at the door

asked me to show her a neighborhood

that was safe to walk her dogs in

She smiled at my uneducated answer and said

Sweetheart, I don’t think you understand

I stand OUT on an affluent street

My skin is too brown

The cops will follow me around

I will feel safer in a different part of town

She loses sleep at night

when her sons are out

Reciting instructions given from day one

about how to survive being pulled over by the cops

knowing not IF it will happen, but WHEN

One week she sends her boy

off to college to become a man

and the next watches hatred fill a campus

not surprised to watch history repeat itself yet AGAIN

I see these supremacy demonstrations

that are filled with men

who all but look like my next of kin

Brandishing sticks and stones

and they think they know me

with their accusations of sin

and I smile a little

because maybe they do

but the joke isn’t over

because I also know them

I know their shouting and gun loading

comes from fear and self loathing

I know that their atrocious, unforgiveable abuse of power

cums from the fact that they have not yet found their own

Using a FIST to make ones way in the world

is just evidence that one is still trapped underneath

someone elses THUMB

and nurturing the family tree of passed down oppression

will only make someone feel

old

tired

and KNUMB

I know their heads full of secrets and games

I know their pants full of inadequacies and shame

I know their hearts full of bruises

I know their histories full of excuses

Just like mine

And I know that

that is not really

who they are
but it is still who they are CHOOSING to be

I hope that someday

very, very, very soon

they will choose to see

that it is MERELY

an education

that they received when they were very little
on how to be small

Let it.

Let love swallow you

Let it imagine you

Let it dream about you 

Let it look at you

Let it study you 

Let it admire you 

and want you 

Let it reach for you 

Let it touch you 

and feel for you 

let it smell you 

and let it inhale you

let its mouth water for you 

let it lick you 

let it take you between its teeth 

let it taste you 

let it saver you 

You damn well better savor it 

for you cannot predict 

when you might feast again

let it bite you 

sink it's teeth in

let it gnaw 

and scrape 

and tear your flesh a part 

Let it chew and gulp 

and gasp in between 

and grind you into a pulp 

that can be digested 

and then 

let it swallow you 

Let it take away your appetite 

or move your food through you 

whatever the case may be

the way that only love can do 

Let it make your head light

and your mind dizzy 

and your nights sweaty

allow it to engulf you in flames 

Walk the streets with your hair on fire

Don't hold anything back

for abandon is the fuel for desire 

Let it take you over completely 

let it wash away all of your sins 

Can I get an amen

let it rinse out all of your sorrows

in the moments that it can

and then let it drown you 

deep In its ocean

like buried treasure

because 

you 

are

Let it bury you 

deep in the ground 

so deep 

That the old you will stay there

and only the roots 

of the tallest trees 

can find you and pull you up

like new-trients 

until you are as high as the tips of the leaves again

Let it carry you to the moon and back again

let it take you over 

and pull you under

with the forces of tides 

that run like currents through your veins

Let it revere you 

and become dear to you 

Let it take your breath away 

fill your heart with play

Let it empty the sky of clouds 

and calm the water to its depths 

Let it make the world become clear to you 

even if for just a moment 

Let it fill the night with storms and wind

let it cut you to the core

Let it turn you into the most shameless whore

and liar 

and beggar 

and cheat

and thief 

Let it hurt you 

and desert you 

Let it crush you 

and flush you

with rage  

and jealousy 

and greed

and grief

Let it bring out the worst in you 

It's ok

because it will most definitely 

bring out the best in you 

and we can endure the worst 

if the best is yet to come

and it is

It always is

Let it float to the surface 

in the wake of the aftermath 

Let love rebuild your belief

that the best is yet to come 

It came to you 

It came from you 

Let it make you a prisoner of hope

let it grow you

and show you 

the next step 

when one foot in front of the other 

is all you can take

Let it make you 

by breaking you 

into teeny tiny little puzzle pieces 

that you have to put back together again 

let it find you 

let it lose you 

let it yearn for you 

Let it miss you 

and choose you 

let it thrill you 

and kill you 

let it skin you alive 

and eat you 

let it feed you 

plant seeds in you 

create needs in you 

let it see through you 

and free you 

let it fill you 

like the sound of a choir

and distill you 

like moonshine in a mason jar

let it walk with you 

and talk with you 

let it laugh at you 

and die with you 

let it live in you 

and cry with you

let it listen to you 

and 

you 

should 

listen 

to it

Let it find you 

in your hiding places 

and unwind you 

from your twisted spaces 

Let it pull you apart

leaving you broken and open

time after time after time

and If it leaves

let it

Let it mourn you 

and you it 

Let it transform you 

and know that you have transformed it

and If it stays 

let it

Let it adorn you 

and you it 

Let it transform you 

and know that you have transformed it 

It comes and goes 

ebbs and flows

hides and seeks 

It sings and speaks

It's all we have 

and all that we are

When you find it

it can enfold you 

with gentle ecstasy 

lift you with electricity 

it holds the power 

to cocoon you 

and it holds the power 

to butterfly you 

But 

you 

have 

to 

let it.