Autopsy Of Arrogance

Over the years,

I've often been advised

to calm the fuck down.

Take a deep breath.

Let things be —

be it gods, governments,

or the gods inside governments.

Let them be.

Keep my voice of dissent

low enough to sink

within the walls of my existence.

I’ve been told:

People need their faith to blind them —

so their detached retinas

can stay disconnected

from inconvenient facts.

I’ve been warned:

Questioning gods and governments

is a journey

with a painfully predictable end —

your breath uprooted

from your very insides

until even your lungs

give up on trying to exist.

“Is living art worth dying for?”

I’ve been asked —

by ghosts dressed in capitalist couture,

waiting to die richer

than their souls ever deserved.

As if the afterlife gives a damn about inheritance.

“Is it worth the fight

when the odds are wired

for you to fail?”

I’ve been interrogated —

by ideas corrupted like cancer,

yet somehow still breathing

on the ventilator of hope.

Well —

If I have to die

for questioning the questionable,

for breathing art out loud,

for bruising the crippled egos

of inherited power

and generational filth...

If I have to die

for truths the intellectuals borrowed

for applause

but never believed in deep enough

to grow a spine,

put a foot down —

Then let me bleed.

Bleed until my blood stops hurting

from bleeding out.

And while I’m at it,

I’ll look up to posterity

and grin one last time — a wry one —

as the poetry in my wrinkled skin

breathes out one last piece:

the obituary of my being.

Now tell me —

how do you bleed out the poetry though?