Everything has a political component
If you learn to see
you’ll surely agree
Everything has a political component
If you think it though
You’ll see it’s true
Walking in America
wearing its mandatory shoes
hurts.
They don’t fit
but because they are superficially pretty
and match the rest of your outfit
people try to tell you
your feet are the problem. Don’t worry.
It’s fixable, they say.
Having tried on and taken home
dozens of the annual versions
of America’s shoes, you disagree
but go on walking
in shoes full of blood,
shoes lined with gun metal.
Everything has a political component
It’s a fact of life
we tuck out of sight
Everything has a political component
We don’t like to say
how it got this way
Trying to find others
whose walk hurts
in the same way yours does
is always hard
and even tragic
on some days.
Finding a place
where others have stopped
to kick them off,
to stand together,
stand barefoot and bruised
but more at ease,
even briefly
for a quick respite,
is its own kind of ache.
Everything has a political component
The slant hits you
as you think it through
Everything has a political component
Every gear that turns
Every tree that burns
The problem, you say,
is the shoes, not the feet,
but even some
of your fellow striders
who’ve stopped beside you
on the street
to pull the cursed shoes off and rest
insist the next version will fit at last.
They’re finally getting it right. Look at
how much progress we’ve made, how
far we’ve come. The walk ahead may be
daunting, but we’ve certainly left
all the bloody footprints
we need
to show the way.
Everything has a political component
Don’t say that too loud
You’ll attract a crowd
Everything has a political component
It’s not always clear
But it’s always there
If you refuse to tie the shoes back on,
they’ll be the first
to stomp your bare feet
until you are dead or
so crushed you might
as well be.
Stop trying, drag yourself
to the nearest funeral home
(because you can’t even limp there)
where they’ll box you up, hide your feet,
burn or bury you and call you a martyr
long before you are in fact dead,
when all you ever wanted was to get home
without screaming inside
at every step.
Everything has a political component
If you learn to see
you’ll surely agree
Everything has a political component
If you think it through
You’ll see it’s true
Dark Matter 
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