Change the Tragedy
Location
Fingers twang down a ballad,
slip across sound stained,
while luke-warm liquid
drips down the throats of the broke,
and bubbles out the bellies of the broken.
A carnival of carnage, when the tipped
toe to their truck and twist the key.
Those sobered by the tragedy
abstain for a moment
of clarity before partaking in
the very deed that spread
bodies across dusk.
Cold-red-dusk lingers
dancing across the words
mocked on tees,
“you only live once”.
Well living once for seventeen years
isn’t enough,
and sober ballads speak
from older tongues.
I would rather know
the warmth of holding
a newborn I can designate, name and
raise, than the warmth from a bottle
that will shatter and devastate.
Lives lost too soon are lives too greatly lost,
and the culture of carnage is a culture
that steals breath from the naive
to line the lungs of entities.
I want to live.
Which I cannot do
if I get in that truck with you.