DIRTY FREEDOM

Dirty Freedom

There was a dirty freedom in the 1980’s
when grafitti was written on the walls of our brain
and we rode the train
on the laps of people stoned and dancing,
killing and cursing.

Bibles were thrown way up into the air
and they later came down and crushed good, beautiful people
already concentrated into volcanic ghettos-
humans covered in disease and debris
blowing away-
from every last immigrant parade,
every last existential blowing, hollow
empty flag.

All colors slink and shine in this dark universe
of individual universes
who move slowly with the weight of their culture and color,
trying to remember
to forget
that assimilation becomes a cellular duty-
survival of the filthiest.

How do you arrange the fragments
that make up the puzzle that is you,
to arrive at some sort of honest human picture,
as you walk through what is left
of the hollow recesses of your dying culture
scattered throughout the terrain of your
broken borough’s mind?

by Tiffany Osedra Miller