Last Rights For An Anarchist

We live in a hateful world.  
A world that I want to hit with 
my fists, kick with my boots, 
and hurt, the way it has hit, 
and kicked, and hurt, me 
and those I love.  
But the world isn’t a person, 
to be hit, or kicked, or hurt.  
It’s a thing.  It’s a whole 
fucking system, and nobody’s 
ever bitch-slapped a system.  

You can’t counter-punch 
politics, or swing a barstool 
at the lying church that 
taught you God is Love, then 
showed you who and how to hate, 
and in doing that, usher in 
God’s Kingdom just by trusting 
in their pasty white Jesus, and 
in his pumpkin-colored high priest. 
Their crucified and bleeding, 
para-military Lamb of God.

You can’t throat-punch 
a paradigm that makes 
billionaires like it used to 
make millionaires, or break 
the kneecaps of a structure that 
rewards politicians with millions.
And turned the middle-class into 
foot soldiers for fascists. 
 
You can’t choke the system that 
gives you life, whatever that 
life looks like now, because 
killing the system that keeps 
you alive ends what’s left of yours.  
Choke it until its eyes cloud over, 
and hear its windpipe crack, stealing 
the last of its breath, unless 
you’re ready for your own eyes to 
cloud over, and for you to 
breathe your last.  

I’ve been impatient, I know this, 
because I’ve lived long enough to 
see what old looks like in a mirror, 
and how the end of my life is getting 
closer, but the end of the system isn’t.
And I feel about as lifeless as the 
system that gave me life, then took it 
all away, until all I want is for 
this system to die.  

So today, the only question I have 
left is, am I prepared to die with it?  
Because I already feel so dead.