How I Learned

I was born to this

as if I was responsible for it;
as if it mattered that I knew it
like a brother, like a child
might know it.

I was born to this;

it mattered to it
just a little, just a bit;
it had its own corrupt life to live
and I was only a glancing blow.

I was born to this

and energy I lent to it
did not reflect upon me,
did not slip over me like a stole
and drape itself on my shoulders.

I was born to this

as a countryman, a citizen
of its lineage, and it sneered at me
and left me stranded in its wake
as it plowed forward over all.

I was born to this;

I fell for it; I learned
so much of it that I died
to anything else that might have
accepted me more readily.

I was born to this

and I cut myself free of it
and cut it off of me like
an unnecessary limb and felt
incomplete, butchered;

I bled red blood of my father
and red blood of my mother
and my own red blood filled the streams
and lakes of the land I was born to

until all around me was crimson
and I lay in the red of it and dreamed
it would wash out at some distant point
in a future I could not see;

I was born to this

and it took me until now
to turn and see myself in opposition
to it, to its corruption and filth;
to turn and say no more;

to take my leftover life up
like a rucksack
and set out on the road
to another place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T