If it’s peace you want
to promote, breathe enough war
into me
that I can taste cordite and see
the volcano that is man’s joy
in mayhem.

If you want me
to understand enough of prejudice
that I want to end its reign, give me
a bit for my mouth and allow me
the pain of struggling against it.

Fable me. Tell me a story that ends with me
seeing a hated face and loving the impact
of my fist against it while I learn to hate myself.
This is how
I learn the ways of violence.
This is how
we will end violence.

We each have to enter a battle
through our cells,
and you can’t exhort me enough
to make me want to change. I only change
when the skin itself tells me it’s time.

No slogans, no easy answers, no stoking
of the heat around my better angels.
You will never ignite me
with a carved diamond.
Blacken me instead
with the honest coal of someone’s dirty
tale, and convince me it is mine as well
before you light the match —

I will only catch fire
for myself in this world
that keeps us so separate
from one another.