THRASH

Expunged from the womb of creation,

We grasp for love,

Our bloody hands and fertile minds

Exploding into confused cries.

A trillion neurons reaching out into this realm,

Smashed against the palm of archaic ideologies,

Of hatred and neuroses,

The permanent imprint of our fathers forgotten fates,

Ignorant men borne of an indifferent

Universe,

Grasping for meaning in animal religions.

They were not yet gods,

Not like us.

We thrash against our fathers’ traditions,

An all-knowing ignorance guiding our paths,

Until the tumbling avalanche of adulthood

Humbles.

The weakness of these darkest nights,

Leaves us grasping for our mothers’ wombs,

Our fathers’ palms,

Oh, when they were gods.

We thrash against

The imprisoning bars of history,

Which extend in all directions,

Encompassing

All information,

Until it’s distilled into an invisible, yet efficient

Prison.

Youthful rebellion ebbs into wisdom,

Defeated, it becomes

Lessons for the next generation,

Until it is lost in allegiances to conservative traditions,

Burying wisdom among the bones of our ancestors,

And across these naked philosophical prairies

Only arrogance remains,

Reinvigorated,

Encouraging man to continue being so

Civilized.

We thrash against the present,

The unknown moment that always arrives,

Through distractions or drinking,

Grasping for plans to place upon chaos,

And consistently distressed

When a seventy year long psychedelic trip,

Fails to conform to the linguistic confines,

Our feeble ape brain

Places upon it.

We thrash against our fragile ego’s

Obsessing over how we’re perceived,

Grasping, instead, for

Who we wish ourselves to be,

Hesitant to acknowledge this permanent difference,

In which lies our actual selves,

Encased securely in protective facades,

Grasping, instead, for the lies of becoming

Perfect,

Never awkward, without flaws,

Never vulnerable, always strong,

A mannequin embodying

Our culture’s thin identity spectrum,

Nothing felt that the sitcoms do not subscribe,

Nothing said that the advertisements do not imply,

Our opinions plucked from their sterile sermons,

Our mannerisms determined from their gender Compression,

Millions of twenty something children,

Thrashing against old institutions,

Grasping for the meaningful labor of salvation,

But waking, always, as slaves

To a world they were given,

Each morning, birthed into a horrific dimension,

Where atrocities are inflicted upon all living things,

At the behest of zealous Elders,

Who thrash against the wave of encroaching irrelevancy,

Grasping for control, madmen

Cackling over poisoned rivers,

Snorting thick lines of ideology off

The bloated bellies of African babies,

Screaming,

“WE KNOW WHAT’S BEST.”

While stoic mountains and sick skies mourn

The sorrow sowed when apes deify opposable

Thumbs.

Released to the crashing waves of time,

We thrash against the shores of fate,

Grasping for elusive rocks of wisdom,

Find only decaying husks of religion

We grasp for the knowledge of old fathers,

Find nothing but absent devils,

We grasp for the love of old Mothers,

Find nothing but pillaged altars.

We grasp for love,

And find a semblance of

It in the musky den of our bedrooms,

Over the steam of coffee as sunlight spills

Across a hardwood floor,

Grasping for warm love and hope

And thrashing,

No more.