Outside Gate 2.5

Outside Gate 2.5
Here, I am the rich. I, ilk of captive
grasslands; interim of conversation and
strangers of shared descent. This discomfort

will follow – as oxide stains the validity of
tonsils, leaked of coarse throat, straining,
frugal with desire to be heard. I abuse the

story I come from. Here, a gun asks for a
namesake. His crippled hips grin of a lawless
history, scorned of the 70s. Hands shuffle us

inside. Tell us for a moment, we must finally
scream for our own selves. I, voiceless for
a future, has entanglement clock our sameness,

our waning fear of living. Inside, they pick up
all our mangled selves, sputtered of wax; and so
we become ember, holding onto life again. We

become your voice, ascent to fueling the ends
of times, like gunshots splayed of freefall towards
streets. Here, I am the rich, burdened of word –

further, they tell us not to fight again. Further, they
say we do not seek them. To this I wonder the
requirement of boiling my skin, or piecing apart

the words we give in pursuit of breathing human.
Or, so begins the collection of cardboard. Corrugated
certainty – and we never give the name. Here, wither life

failed of repetitions. History lessons: Hilao, Quimpo,
to which the voice is of wax or prestige – here,
never again.

(Never again.)