1. On growing up Catholic

 No priest, doctrine,
or ritual
ever touched me,

neither appropriately
nor inappropriately,

not physically,
not spiritually.

2.  On safety

I have always considered it
the least desirable
of attributes. No gift has ever
come to me
from that place. 

3.  On aging

 They tell me 
some flowers
only bloom in winter,

that my age 
is just a number
and it means little.

They tell me a lot of things
they can’t in fact
prove, that in fact sound

a lot like lies.  But it all sounds
like mostly old records
pressed in vinyl and wax,

and they break,
they can be broken.

4. On politics 

For the majority of us in the US of A
politics seems a luxury,
a rich man’s sport.  

We don’t call 
what we do “politics” —
we call it “the stopgap between 
slitting our wrists
and slitting their throats.”

5.  On the slitting of throats

It’s coming.
It’ll be the aftermath,
really —

if you reach the point
where you are willing to do it,
able to do it,
it will be done for you
faster.