Poem in an Election Year

Do any of you
believe in me?

With your sugary
ideals like
pacifiers;
with your simpering
name-calling:
schoolyard bullies
in bigger, shiner
bodies;
with your savory
promises
bursting like
Kalamata olives upon
my tongue.

Have any of you
tread my path?

Have you ever
woken up
in a psych ward,
drowsy and
delirious and
distraught,
with the residue
of fistfuls
of pills
lining the
inside of your
skin,
pissed off that
you somehow
failed
at even this?

Have you ever
been to rehab,
sitting in sterile
circles
with other drunks,
addicts, and
crazies,
and heard their
stories
of turning
tricks for crack,
of being raped
at knife-point,
of begging in a
four year-old’s voice
to
Stop, Mama,
Stop,
as the snake of an
electrical cord
detonates the
flesh?

Have you ever
fallen totally,
helplessly,
in love,
only to be told
that you can’t
marry in 49
states, and in
many of those
states, what you
do in your
bedroom
is considered
illegal,
immoral, and
monstrous?

Have you ever
worked for
minimum wage,
scrimping and
saving and
struggling and
still—
dammit!—
still there’s not nearly
enough
to take the baby
to the doctor?

Have you ever
lived off
Ramen noodles
and Wonder bread
and Wondered
what four-course
meal
those big-wigs in
Hollywood, or
Washington,
are dining on
tonight?

Have you ever
sent your
children
off to war,
wracking with
sobs and orchestrating
a silent
internal
dirge,
all the while
trying to work out
how you can
send them
armor and bulletproof
vests
because the
government
can’t “afford” it?

Have you ever
been stripped
of your
humanity,
by just doing the
simplest
things, like
boarding an airplane,
or using your
telephone,
knowing that because
you think
you feel
you question,
anyone in a
uniform
can walk in at any
minute
and arrest you for
no
reason?

This is a poem
written
in an election year,
and I will,
of course,
vote.

But not because
you
don’t know
me,
but because
someday,
I
hope
you
might.