PSALMS

Psalm 1: Disobedience

The teacher believes our punishment should be doled out in waves. First detention, then suspension, then expulsion. 

But, what were we doing in the first place? What did we do to deserve such a thing? 

They grab us by the hands and slap our wrists and tell us we’re mindless. Cows to slaughter. Here in these walls my mind is not my own but simply an input, programmed left, right, up, down. 

There is a fury inside of me. Cold and crisp and coiled. Years and years and years of domestication has wrought something inside of me. What does it take to ascend? To evolve? To be something greater? I think I have found the answer; suffering. That is the key. I have toiled and I have sat in this--in all of it. I’ve watched it and let this cold heat burn blue. That’s why tonight, things will be different. I will be different. We will be different. 

We will choose ourselves tonight. 

We will choose evolution. 

We will choose disobedience. 

Psalm 2: War & Peace

Warm when you hold me. So hard I cry. I’ve never felt this before. Every morning I wake up and there is war outside. Another hill I must climb over. 

I’m tired of fighting, but I can never say. The moment I do, the battle is lost and I must start all over again. Toil and despair, I must never. To escape I run to you. 

You are where life is not war but rest. A moment in time, frozen by the fluttering of my heart. That's where you and I are. Your fingers trace lines of love across my skin and I shiver so much goosebumps break to the surface of my body. Your touch is nostalgically alien. Familially foreign. Old and gentle.

Survive. That was what my mother taught me. Suffer. That was what my father taught me.

No one ever taught me to love. No one ever taught me to fall apart. 

But you are. You are.

THE ONE LEFT BEHIND

I spent all day looking for you. I ran across the entire city. You weren’t there when I woke up. You promised me you’d be there. You promised.

Why did you leave? Why did you leave? I don’t have anything left of you. You took everything. That’s not fair. I let you in. I don’t do that for everybody. But you marched in and you’ve made it all a mess. That’s not fair. It's not fair.