Fear is not a finish line… Friday Oct. 3, 2014 / KCK #SchwervonPoetry

Turn off the blue light
Take my hand
Walk into the darkness with me.
I know you are afraid
Fear is not a finish line
It is a starting point
Fear is a question
We need it like we need salt and water
The stale air of anger will choke like the poison gas of war
Anger thrives in the trenches
It feeds the meat grinder
Gives birth to bomb craters no mans lands
There is no waiting for the world to end
There is no limit to the squares on the paper towl roll
Life is a paper towl.
We roll
We tear
We soak it in.
We do a job and we recycle.
We’re not made to support enormous amounts of weight.
Our job is not to absorb blue food colored liquid.
We are here to clean up the mess.
No certificate needed
We are the certificate
We are the inkwells tattooing our bones into the earth and trees
Like heavy rain in a desert
We are here to make an impression and then smooth it over on a sunny day
Let’s stop treating ourselves like the objects that we think are only objects.
Let’s live the moments like we remember the good parts about the past.
It doesn’t matter if it was all a dream.
Live the dream now.

(This poem was originally recited at the Broken Teeth CD Release show at FOKL Art Space on October 3, 2014 in Kansas City, KS)