I want to be a ghost

 

I mask my words but rarely my face

When I wish to speak it’s never the place

My words my politics you’ll never embrace

If I wait for permission I’ll just be erased

 

Stepping out my flat is an exercise in bravery

The world is caught in capitalist slavery

The rich upholding the structure of patriarchy

Everyone to some extent acquiesces to conformity

 

To most I am different, an oddball, abnormal

I didn’t choose this outcome, to be nonconformal

I was born out of time, my gestation subnormal

I was born out of place, not out the right canal

 

I wish I didn’t see all the world’s suffering

I wish I couldn’t hear all that silent screaming

I wish I didn’t feel all the narcissists’ abuse

I wish I didn’t live – I want to be a ghost

My brain is now marshmallow

Unable to teach

I am swimming in tallow 

Don't tell me don't tell me to go into the night

 When the ones in power are the horsemen of discrimination

Of racism of queer phobia of ableism of misinformation

Hammers of the abuser and anvil of the patriarchy

Ultimately all working for furthering white supremacy

I do not go gently into the good night

My mind filled with rage my heart filled with fright

My siblings abuse plagued, my world darkness blights

Don't tell me don't tell me to look to the light

My poetry is getting more and more unhinged

As my brain and my heart gets increasingly deranged

Is it me am I mad or is this world just strange

Where billionaires are heroes but activists get lynched

I have no fight left to give, just poetry to recite

This world's worn me down for I am queer and am not white 

My life darkness takes, my pen my only might

Don't tell me don't tell me to go into the night