Blood and Hunger

Stand straight. Speak gently.

Polish your nails. Iron your suit.

Tailored and tuned are the finest details of our chores.

But no amount of Downy fragrance beads

could mask the wreak;

the violent stench of rawness seeping through our pores.

To be or not to be. Was there ever a choice?

Hunting is only for sport. Desire is vain.

Follow your heart, but listen to your brain.

What does the taken’s lover do when there is ache?

Does the mother of seven ever break?

Does the working father remember what it felt like to be held?

We abide and remain shelled,

in fear of being the ones expelled.

We teeter the line of insanity and humanity.

Remember to watch your profanity.

But if to be human is to be alive.

Then to be alive is to be blood and hunger.

Suffocating to pretend we’re polished,

yet continuing to tether the younger.

When one question remains, I ask:

How did we justify the frontal lobe

erasing our truth, the ancestry of the globe?