You are trapped inside a poem 

that’s part dungeon, part safe space, 

a storm shelter surrounded by squalls. 

You are part mailman, part machete, 

delivering handwritten notes of optimism 

to the severed hands of unlucky recipients. 

You are not the food on the table 

but the urge that drags us there, 

starving. I label you as both savior 

and scapegoat in the same breath. 

You preach sermons about the rope 

without mentioning the tree, 

neglecting the asphyxiated truth 

hanging between us. 

I imagine you as a specter of light 

with a lump of burning coal for a heart. 

Voltas of gentrified dreams, 

brutal futures, and melancholy equations. 

You survive only because some people 

want you to exist. You survive only because 

other people want you destroyed.