Not Everyone Gets To

For Evan Grykuliak and Dylan McGillis

You can sink a blade into a man's kidney
and take away his now and his tomorrow,
but you can't take away his one letter to this world.

You can't tell us that streets are meaner these days
because we know they aren't;
bottles, knuckles, and stupidity have always been bedfellows.

You can't quell the tides of universal retribution;
it's in the mail for you,
it was in the mail for them,
it's in the mail for us.

You won't believe that we hold tight
to us and ours, but not too tight.
We won't cage doves for fear of raptors.

You can't smash the anger of a public
tired of the whole bag of shit;
Tired of mean streets that don't have to be mean,
tired of kids beating each other
for a lark, for a story to tell, for a cell phone.

You can't dispel a grieving father,
a man trying to fix this wrong,
his need to do something, anything, to make it better,
when he knows in his heart that he can't.

You can't say that you're different than us;
you're contained in the same frightened vessel -
a different label, a different past, same old blood.

You can't say that it comes that way when
someone steps to you,
'cuz when everyone steps to you,
when life steps to you,
all that hubris won't help a lick.

You don't believe that fear begets blood,
that our corner of this place is but a speck,
that our time here is merely a moment,
that what we do here counts,
that our fists and our lips are signatures both.

You don't know that we do not hate,
that our pity is just anger with a broken heart,
that from the strong, even cowards deserve sympathy.

Not everyone gets that nice day in the park,
sun on face, birds in ear,
and not everyone buries a son or a daughter.
Not everyone kills for simple reasons,
and not everyone gets their due justice.
Not everyone gets to stick around,
struggle, love, and be beautiful.
Not everyone gets to say their piece to this world,
to write that one letter,
and say that one true word.