I am many things
I am a roller coaster
I am an overpriced funnel cake
I am a long line for a short ride
I am in on the take
I am an unneeded traffic roundabout
I am the price of gasoline
I am pretty sure that I am
self-doubt
I am the spent remains of the Fourth
of July
I am climate change
I am the spit in your eye
I am death on a beach washed up at
your feet
I am the poisoned hot dog you came
here to eat
I am a homeless man’s failed
revolution
I am a problem without a solution
I am at war
With Russia, Ukraine
With Israel, Palestine
With Costco, with Walmart
With plastic and with death
I chose all of this
When I chose life
July 7, 1975
Starved for air at birth
Blue decorations on the wall
To match the color of my skin
Dead on arrival
A lung closed shut
Like the door to the room
Where my mother’s arms
Held nothing but an empty blanket
Where I should have been
So I held my breath
Until the spiritual mysteries
Of the primitive world
Were solved by the wonders
Of the middle ages
And finally dismantled
By rational deduction
When cold lifeless materialism
Invented the myth
Of Magic Kingdoms
And happier places on earth
And Disneyland appeared
Outside the hospital window
As Mickey Mouse himself
Wheeled in the machinery
I needed to live
An IV drip of coca-cola
An iron lung
An oxygen chamber
All rolled into one
I’ll hand it to that corporate rat
That medical mouse did… at last
Build a better mousetrap
And into it I was born
And now
I can only hope
That my will to live
Is no longer so strong
As to invent any more
Theme parks
I am tired, Dad
And I want to go home
