Out of Habit

That morning,

    When you are out of coffee.

So what?

    You drink Sambuca instead.

Without

    the coffee.

Instead of the other way around. 

The world

            Is all a bit different.

Like when

            You left home for the first time.

Not booze.

     Not dreams.

What you do and think changes what’s around.

Just like

            How it all changed on that day.

The day

            After your graduation.

Routine,

    All gone.

Evaporated, only crystals remain.

In the gems that remain, what is distilled and left,

You can re-shape your world though habits, by first thinking,

And then by acting that way, not the other way around. 

Stolen: A Paranoid’s Confession of Faith

My freedom is stolen:

            My actions and body are not my own;

            I am kept as a slave.

My aspirations are stolen:

            My future is out of my power to control or decide;

            I am stuck in this caste.

My labor is stolen:

            I toil for the scraps they give me;

            They own what I produce.

My thoughts are stolen:

            Society and the media control my mind;

            I can’t think on my own.

My desires are stolen:

            My DNA and instincts control what I want;

   I am only a beast.

My charity is stolen:

            In every act they find an ulterior motive;

            To them, I give only to help myself.

 My children are stolen:

            The state and the media tell them what to think and what to be;

            They are not mine to shape and raise.

My community is stolen:

            I am only a source of money and labor to those around me;

            I am what I consume and exist to be consumed.

My needs are stolen:

            I always need what is just beyond my reach;

            This treadmill just won’t stop.

My religion is stolen:

            I am told what to believe without explanation;

            Or I am told I can’t believe without proof.

I am never mine.

I am never me.

They only take.

They always interfere.

Alienation is my human condition.