It’s not polite to say this
Why don’t you go away
We want you to die
or to not have ever existed 
would have been better

It’s not right to say this
Why aren’t you a memory
or not even a memory
We want to not know you
We want you to be fictional

but who would
have written you
Whose idea could you
have been
Where would you have
percolated up from
What oily bed would
have given you birth

It’s not possible to understand
why are you what you are
Why aren’t you extinct
We’d love you more were you fossilized
We’d love to ponder if you were real

The hot wars, acid suspicions
and other pleasantries
of our families both blood and chosen

keep boiling into the fabric
of our robes and threaten
to scald the threads,

stripping them bare
of any color and half or more
of their strength.  

We are soggy and scared,
burned, either afraid to stand up
or defiant and ready to scream.

What are we going to be —
the same cloth as always,
or something new

that drapes us naturally
and shows us off with deep color
and soft hand?