The pain of the world strapped to their ankles

a poet is weighed down.

 

Weighed down

like cotton bales strapped to hunched backs;

stone uprooted by torn cuticles and nails

lifted onto sun-burnt shoulders

building, a monument to a man.

 

Like, wraiths held down by bones shuffling

endlessly shuffling into the large bellies of monsters

under the premise of a shower after,

being defiled by enemies…

enemies, under the guise of being one’s own country.

 

A poet, is weighed down.

 

Weighed down

like, you can’t possibly think

like I think how I think what I think can’t,

possibly share the same space as me can’t,

possibly breathe the same air that I breathe

can’t, possibly be human.

 

A poet, is weighed down.

 

Weighed down by hundreds of years

of human sacrifice and struggle.

 

Hundreds of years of history carved

into the memory banks of a hundreds of years more.

 

More, pain more misery more

debasement of what it means, to be human.

 

A poet is human yet,

weighed down by the troubles of God,

their words, an effort to put in reverse

the mistakes of humanity and

appeal to a higher power like

'Please, just please this one time…

Can we all just get along?'

 

You see, a poet is weighed down by

me, by you, by them we us our lives

our struggle our story...this story,

that will be told by a poet

just to relieve the burden.

 

If only for a moment.