made up

your mind was made up
centuries before you were born

there's hatred in your dna
& in the color of your skin
& between the lines of the only book you've ever read
passed down from on high
courtesy of that great authoritarian dictator

his is the world to which we aspire
his loathing
gives all our sin its flavor

his is the apocalypse
we bring crashing down like Samson
us & them
flattened to soup
under the same crumbling roof

your mind's made up

you can't understand
the rhyme or reason
of time & seasons
of lizard brains & vestigial tales
& the distinct possibility
that one day your soul won't be there anymore

worse still
perhaps it was never there to begin with

it makes no sense, meanwhile
that all those rights
& all that dignity
should go to anyone you don't see
when you gaze into the mirror

it makes no sense
that driving force that spins the world

you thought you understood
but now it's turning in the wrong direction

you're small
& you're afraid
& if you can't find the culprit
you'll assemble one
from sticks & straw & overalls

no mind
no heart
no courage

you channel your rage into a masterpiece
of mangled guts & powdered skulls
red white & brown
plastered on the walls
minds made into confetti
before they were ever even old enough
to wonder why

your magnum opus
worth half a trillion dollars
of other people's money

you don't mind

what better way to spend a fortune
& the blood of a generation
than on a holy crusade
against the universe closing in
like a noose around your neck?

your parents
& their parents
& the father you never knew
told you that the light from above
would shine on you forever

they never told you
that the sun could burn

they warned you of shadows
but never about the danger
of swimming out too deep
& drowning in darkness

they never once spoke to you
of the light you had inside

but it's too late now

far too late

your mind's made up
& it's set in stone
& you'll never ever bring yourself
to let that hammer fall