# give them their voices # https://twohundredtwo.neocities.org/ # this is just one version of this poem we ponder, no, fret at ourselves for days in this wintertime haze before some part of us decides that we're going to be telling the truth. but that's a normal thing tho. that shivering, quaking, unfortunately familiar fear grips digs into our backs without our consent as we walk outside and the sun falls again. as we try to tell our story, but ahaha, where do i even begin? and yet for how cold it is there is no snow. but that's normal weather tho. whether weathering storms come to pass or show. the words trembling, no, dancing mischievously, like ... like immature generals of war in their mocking manner defiant as always; yet emancipating themselves from our prison of fat, muscle, blood, bone. but that's normal tho. it's unjust how they fall on the snow, guilttripping and laughing, a masochistic sardonic selfcentered narrator fisticuffs with an identity ... yes, laughing as they sell me away to the war that i never asked to join. my action was not voluntary, no one remembers if there was even action to begin with, but. "Somebody started this and now someone has to--" finish it ... ? or so the narration goes ... ? i never understood. the words now fall on the snow, drip... dripping cold, hard, facts and staining our favorite clothes. and when you wake up in your dream seeing the sightscene, 1916 bullets flying at a terrifying pace to your headline, 16 where did it begin before, you imagined a universal declaration of pascifism or am i being too sappy watched the air above, and not want for trying not want, not once did you want to be left in a limited being you wanted to be ridden of a sense of identity watched the rest of them stars in the sky blinking at lightspeed, fighting, trying space is a void of antimatter and nuclear writhing, bustling, energy enigmatic existentialistic entities eager egotistical ever edged on insanity or so you were told relentlessly so you gave up that dream 16 you were only that age when you watched the horizon bleed turned tempered men into mortal vessels, just chips in mainframes simulating history set in stone for all to see to learn to never do, to never return to again, but we all know where states are going chips in mainframes cogs in a set of sets counting past infinity numbers in a machine calculating an algorithm for PTSD stars in the sky blinking at lightspeed fighting trying space is a void of antimatter and nuclear writhing are we monsters or are we animals does it feel like nicotine, trying? does it feel like insanity, trying? does it feel, does it feel, does it feel like a broken record, grooving, shifting, needle in a trench guided by just soundwaves, deafening-- you dont remember? oh. i see. i'm rambling. imagining. ... but i couldn't be. i felt that. it was real. and yeah, some of them fall. some of them freeze at the spot too, and then they are bombed and buried bloodied and battered, bruised, bones broken buried with their comrades like we are only for the "survivors" to say something, no, nothing, no, no, something of the truth of what happened there the urge to scream! , the impulse, the irrational desire to be heard ... forces through awkwardly thru our fat lips and dark circled eyes shaking hands frayed hair our disheveled lives at home and work once the war is over only to stutter we st stu st stut stut stutt er st stutt ss sstutter st stutt er only to stutter only to stutter after saying "We are ... " so we turn back to the trenches of dried mud and blood. of secrets and snow both sides know and refuse to show or deliver through doves, dued debts owned but unpaid for both brash fighters. of others too, buried, old and anew and of course it's true we say "We are ... " before faltering. and we are shot! by critics, empathizers, bootlickers, and we are buried! with our achievements. the hands that caressed our lovers face, the legs that made us run when our lungs could no longer the tools we used the places we went stored in mind, body, spirit, tombs. "the war to be heard" tears us all apart as easy as the naysayers spies reactionaries donobetterknownoworse physically dismantle and destroy documents and treaties designed to stop this war and those opponents proclaimed vividly a memory of yesteryear where the same thing happened before again and again, they thought they'd seen a delightful chorale a saccharine sweet singsong sung long in keys of d so they dismantled and destroyed documents and treaties despite our due diligence done and distributed, deadly blows to our enemies gestures of goodwill after endless suffering are we all gods or are we just limited to our own bloodstreams and they destroyed them all, the treaties, ones designed to-- designed to designed to give us our voices back our lives back designed to, designated to, dire straights we were were directed to, subjected to, pushed to, to be or not to be? dying for the state, did they mean it out there ... or somewhere inbetween? somewhere long after when they're now living broke and on the streets and the war rages forwards. "Hey, 50 trillion bucks is 50 trillion bucks."