I hail from the land of greed and sloth.

My life is synthesized, homogenized, pasteurized.
My thoughts censored and desensitized, demoralized and criticized.

I speak through the large end of a megaphone, my words growing smaller with each syllable.
Unheard by the abusive shrubs that bear down on me in this illusion of Eden.


I crawl with the ants upon whose backs this garden lies
Black, brown, red, yellow, an earthen plethora of species struggling to sustain.

Lost in the ghetto tunnels crushed underfoot by the elite and poisoned with the chemical tricklings of the rich and famous, convincing our young to hatch early and be half the worker they could be.

We march diligently to the beat of the drums of our ancestors in the naïve notion this is a nation of opportunity, community, wealth and generosity.

Only to have the rugs pulled from beneath us by a sadistic little boy with flammable liquid and a magnifying glass.