Nature vs. Nurture

I thought for sure I could manage the explosions, they were, after all, mines I laid myself. Carried like newborns, cradled rather, like Christmas ornaments or glass China seconds away from shattering, I placed them all with careful consideration. These were mine, these buds of anger, cracking the dirt like seeds straining to see the sun. I sat back to watch, trembling. Have I sewn seeds of things I will grow to regret? When the time comes, will they explode in my hands as I struggle to find them before my enemies pass? Will I protect them once again? Or stand in silence, the proud owner of their wrongs; a machine they have created, their prodigy child, perfect replicas of their sin. Are we just patches of experience molded by the quick hands of lust, rage, gluttony, fear, negligence, and disgust? What of nature, what of innocence at birth? I'm not sovereign in my own body.

"I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters."
-Thoreau

Rumbling like empty stomachs
Talking, begging questions, assuming induction
And criticizing logic derived from honest ache
This is not a God I plan to create

Come down to the washroom 

Breathe where you can find it 

Slap the words on your body 

World of caterpillar dances 

Hold your best friend like a newborn 

Through the trampoline living-room 

Euphoric quiet black doom 

Held over like a falling blanket 

Or a stream off a cliff 

Ever changing, rolling, released hips 

Smash together with addict violence 

Where the water falls, lift your head and swallow

Spin like spin like spin like carousels 

Kiss the animals that toss you 

Up and down, latchkey kids grown 

Hold on to the flight 

Its such a wonderful lucid night

It was a small cellar of sorts, a narrow passage divided in two by an oversized plastic shower curtain. The white reminded her of the hospital. She removed her clothes piece by piece, standing at last, slightly arched from the day spent huddled under florescent lights, her mind like a mitt ready to catch. She had found she enjoyed her compulsive studies above all other escapes, alcohol alike.  The dwindling of her sex drive was obvious; she spent her time sleeping when she used to crave the pleasure, the tickle of sex. She looked down at her body without opinion and rubbed the small of her back, pressing against the pain of early aging. She turned the knob in the shower to hear the sound of water, crisp as it hit the bottom. Hidden in her bag she found the instrument of the demons, used to weld a shrine to the evils in the world right there on her body.

She took off her shower shoes. She had never before felt the pit that drained the dirty water from her. All the diseases that crept there would catch instantly to their first host and she would close her eyes to feel the alternating pressures press against the thick skin on the bottom of her feet, and she would know for the first time what it felt like to catch a disease. She had to turn her face when she washed her arm, the smell of rusting metal made her sick with contempt. Would she grow old, she wondered. The constant stream of steaming water had numbed the back of her neck, and she had found how it felt when the dirt is too thick to wash off. 

Where I trade sin for pain 

Alleviate the social qualms and count to ten 

Gasp for air where I could've let it seep out

And tuck my head in my knees to wait it out

A caravan of calm voices and busy hands 

I know how to make it better but... 

A trade off so simple and easy to hide 

Makes sense like a pill that they'll force down 

But with certain aches and nauseous coughs 

They swear it trumps injury in ethical costs

Blue swells on my arms where I "ran into doors"

Im starting to wonder if this is really worth fighting for 

how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?

I am my brothers keeper. I will be my brothers keeper.