(Photo Sylvain Reygaerts)
I learned a while ago
that know matter what I say
no matter where I go
I am both servant and master
inclined to help people do better
but should also feel comfortable enough to lean
on those who are around me
Because the truth is
despite people talking about the
importance of individuality, and self,
at the end of the day we exist in a community
where I belong to you and you to me
and those that often jive talk about Personal responsibility
thinks everyone else should have it
but their issues, their reason for unemployment, WIC, or food stamps- well, that’s a specialty
An outlier, something so exceptional
which allows them to hoard grace and then rob it
from others.
whether it be a homeless vet or a single mother
it’s that exceptional lie of ‘someone else can worry’
that makes it impossible for our culture to hurry
into its natural next phase of evolution
It’s that lie that makes ‘other’ , hatred of another
so’s they can be denied things given to their brother
on the basis of his faith, class, or skin color
things they want denied to someone else because of whom
they take as their lover
in the meantime justifying their hate by saying, ‘Well, they’re queer.”
No, see, not really
what’s queer is to run counter to your own humanity
things that man Jesus, remember him, talked about
before they nailed him to a tree
things repeated my Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King
that said “Yo, treat others like you want to be treated’
this isn’t rocket science
but something that rests solidly in your own conscience
that you have to daily be willing to murder
so you can say, “That man, that man right there with the funny accent. He’s an intruder. ”
Kick him out
Who’s really queer here?
Cause I can guarantee you, it isn’t the Hispanic woman
the African son, the white snowflake you intimidate with your guns
it isn’t the lesbian politician nor the Muslim man who was beaten in his store in New York
No, see queer means something entirely different it means something more
Queer means odd
and denying people their fundamental rights before you dispatch them to their respective God
says more about you than anything said about them
“Behold, this was this sin of your sister Sodom”
She was fat, she was lazy, and she didn’t give a damn
She could have, she should have, but she didn’t understand her own situation nor it’s gravity
of what happens when you willfully destroy your own humanity
and embrace chance, embrace apathy,
that the stone cold nature of mankind’s cruelty becomes ten fold
when the bell you rang or allowed to be rung for someone else
finally tolls for thee.
And it does -without a doubt – toll for thee.
As it tolls for your neighbor, as it tolls for me
see no matter our lot in life, or wealth, or station
our burial plots are all the same size
death is mankind’s equalizer, the greatest of it’s kind
so whether you were born in palatial splendor or ended up dead in a ditch
I promise you in thirty six years of life – I’ve yet to see a hearse with a hitch.
Both Servant and master– Beautiful poetry
Comments are closed.