Books stacked up on the desk
Like sandbags for protection
But the water's gonna find a way in...

So long staring at this window
The news is far away
I turn the radio off early lately

Power fears turned tables above everything else
So they pulverize the vulnerable to comfort themselves
The state, the cops, the occupiers, armed to the teeth
With a mandate for repression we support implicitly

But nobody needs a perfunctory "mea culpa!"
Apologies come as soon as conditions necessitate
the illusion of doing something
I've got change for you and it's a one-liner:
"Stop the Hate!" on a little painted sign
A meek cry thrown from the back of a big room while the planet dies

The politics of recognition are a dead end
Pointing at a body like:
"I think this guy needed medicine!"
Oh, tell your very observant friend I think they're on to something...
Like, where's all the Land Back when you need it?
The political means for Palestinian freedom?
The right live as a whole human being
to go where you want and to eat when you need it?

Power fears turned tables above everything else
So it lashes out in violence to comfort itself
Scary boyfriends, jailers, judges, pipeline police
And ubiquitous surveillance fills the spaces in-between

We reify data
We reify law
Efficiency, measurement, reason and all
Epistemological means of control
Teaching kids at a vulnerable age
That their emotions burden their brains
The Self, an undisciplined worker who needs
the firm hand of management to be made useful

It's hard to believe
When a whole bunch of people who stay the same say
"everything is changing"
We welcome a New Day
like Anything is happening--
(Weird!)

I don't mean to be mean
or disempower
This is just me spiraling
I'll be fine in about an hour
For now
I'm just incredulous
Raging that there's gotta be
a better way to get folks the things that they need:
Healthcare, Housing, Food, and Dignity

But what I don't know at thirty-one years old
I'm probably not gonna know
Without making the time
Prioritizing
Thinking, deciding
Building a life
And trying to be alright
Bringing the fight when conditions call for a struggle
That's when you'll know
If the strategy's right
If you brought enough muscle
Fail, rinse, repeat
And do a better job tomorrow

Power fears turned tables above everything else
So our highest aspirations atrophy under our doubts
So let's incubate the futures that we all know we need
And in the meantime struggle firmly against our class enemies

'Cause to them
Law and Order
translates to
Control
of subject populations
of whom their afraid
with the Fear and the Hate
enacted by the State
all the while making Bank
selling weapons
Hip Hooray!

Then they render the system
of social provision
so indescribably impotent
that it feels unrealistic
to make any demands of it
Who does that serve?
The same Bastards
So hell yea, I voted for Bernie Sanders!
Medicare for All my friends!
Fully fund that shit!
And if you love your
employer-provided
sky-high-deductiblized
private insurance so much
Why don't you marry it?