Scapegoat
dayz i’ve learned to keep my mouth shut ’round me
where vicious hatred feeds
on others’ needs, rav’nous for the untruth, and
blame games for something bigger than the hallway smut
that shelters chaos and racial slurs,
and whispers behind closed doors.
you prepare to gut me,
Pleeze…scrape me free of your idiocracy,
me, the instigator of gang fights and lock-downs,
a catalyst for the ridiculous
laid on my shoulders,
side-eye glansez follow the lead
like sheep over a cliff of staus quo,
“jus’ follow the joe”
as if over 50 years of injustice had never occurred.
it’s clear of what’s happ’ning here,
i speak to dead ears that have told too many lies,
a meaningless blather blisters my intent,
a blast of injury, meant to bury truth,
an abrupt sense of dead hollowed hearts
falling on fallowed justice
black raindrops in the dark
swept just past eye’s view.
“it is i!” i want to yell,
that dare to respond to your untruth.
Your yellow ocean bubbling with your audacity.
Bravo, the wailing…never ended,
in the sorrow of the children
waiting to be set free.
drowning, draining, in secret to silent dead weight,
shrink from syllabic counting and archaic language.
to the marching in cadence
to the soul seeking meaning,
i empty myself with tears.
Karen K. L. Espaniola April 12, 2012
