Pen and Paper: "-"

I had a great lunch with a friend today and he reminded me that a poet need not be estranged from his pen for too long.  So, here is an older poem that will be accompanied by a new piece in the morning. 

"-"

The clock struck one and woke me up from my daze
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked down at the blank page
Cursor flashing

Life as a hyphen I begin
But get lost in the space on both ends of the dash
Lost in what it means
To be anything
So wrapped up in the delusions of inclusion that lay
In the union of two words
That do not define me but confine me to an identity
Chanting and chanting

They say sticks and stone make break your bones
But words can ever hurt me
When the
Truth be
Words don’t hurt
They kill
With precision and no shame
Hurled by the mouths of the
Idiots and savants
Equally

Sticks stones bones
Breaking under the weight of a well crafted
Line
Or misused verse cast as a curse
Upon the infidel with nerve
To challenge and end the line with a question mark
-ing time with the passing of each life sacrificed
to un balanced conjunctions of
conflicting assumptions of who I am
imposed by  scribbles on a page

words don’t hurt they kill
ideas
and
dreams
slaughter peoples
and nations
when formed in minds warped by false assumptions
and presumptions
of justice and democracy
in le se faire bureaucracy that
that draw lines between
you, me, and the powers that be
that interconnect the three