We of the swollen carapace
Shall know pain mightily
Shall learn when to hold
And when to surrender
But until then we carve
Our ruts especially deep.

The world is a petri dish
And my expectations
Are irrelevant to the duration
Of my species as a whole
I speak for no man who does not
Possess a heart and tongue
Equally capable of noise
Sometimes there is even
Music between us
A kind of invertebrate symphony
Our flesh more easily stitched
Than bone or is it?

No amount of persuasion
Could draw this veil aside
For there is always another
Willing to negate the privilege.
We are alive but only just
Who among us can face
The collective consciousness?
We’ve created a society
That is contradictory
To life and our sorrows
However, scarce their content
Cannot find amelioration
In any known conquest

We contend that as children
We lived but every whisper
Contains its dose of poison
To be is to be had, to become
For the sake of an approximation
That in conflict does not stand

There are no eyes only
Pits of contagion
No smiles only frowns
Of inebriation worn askance
No hands without blood
For mercy does not fill
Leather as hate does
The seismic universal
Of self-worth is S slashed

We never look into the fires
That we have lit unless
We’ve found in some
Fool a culprit or alibi
There is no accounting
For denial, we survive only
In this moment
No matter how precariously
The future rests

Yves K. Morrow is living in Sweden with her husband of 14 years and her 6 year old daughter. She is a stay at home mom pursuing her passion for writing. She has a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics and is a Certified Pilates instructor.

You can connect with Yves on her blog, here.