Change the Tragedy

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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.

 

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