Undue Silence [a poem]

Homeward bound after undue silence in Puget Sound

Indecisive, every derision

Thought you’d stay the night

You were gone before the sun popped the horizon

Top of the night

Bag of Cheetos, jugs of Tampico

Too tired for anything cerebral

Put in something cheesy, probably a sequel

In my apartment with no AC

Prepping bottomless Molotovs

This was the dream

Since our teens, every Halloween was berets with Kalashnikovs

Swore we’d do this forever

Stay in the fight, til we’d no longer need marches

So laughable now

Looking back

Said you just didn’t have it in you anymore

Too fatigued to put on the fatigues

Purple Heart on your sleeve, cheap consolation from the war

Every night watching the neighborhood burn down again and again

Kids who don’t even live here

Activists for the summer

Every Shaun King clip made you number

Don’t forget the world went to shit

For reasons nobody likes to admit

And now your gone

Took a corporate job

Clean cut, salary and a little something for the benefactors

Don’t know who you are anymore

Been a factor

I don’t know who I am now without you

I don’t know what to do without you

So I stay stuck in this couch like pocket change

Only motivation is press play on Netflix

Bathe in another bag of Cheetos with hot flames

I should

Hop a plane

Get away from the noise

For some undue silence