The new dawn is pitiful.
The air is still half-conscious
with the rings of the white men's cries,
the rings that will never subside,
always... lingering.
My brothers have lost
and the white men have won;
the sun has lost
and it sheds its tarnished tears.
My brothers' thoughts have gone stale
and can never be found again
in an infinite collection
of resurrected next-lives.

The ground is wet with sour spit.
I see my reflection
for the first time in hours,
days,
weeks,
years,
lifetimes.

Am I an abomination?
Have I robbed strangers of their beating hearts,
their thumping pulses?
Did I make a vow?
Did they make a vow?
Has this life seduced us with a contract
that has been foiled,
rotted,
cheated?
I blink.
Nothing changes.
I blink again.
The colors dizzy me.
Haughty reds and
fathomless blacks and
yellows of hate-fire.
I am left to breathe this sweaty, mangled air.
Is this real?

I have been chosen to live,
to breathe,
to blink;
I am allowed to keep
this intimacy with life.
But what does it mean to me
to still own this long, black, burnt hair
and Indian heart that sings
in a choir
whittled down
to a solo?
What does it mean to the dead men
that I am alive?

Why me?
I whisper to the mountains' great ugly heads.
WHY THIS? WHY ME?
I shout, I bellow,
I screech to everyone,
all the dead and
all the lost and
every last stranger;
all the moons
and suns
and crusted, wounded horizons.
I don't know what's coming next,
I am just alone in this second,
wasting this breath.
For the sun never sets on the
promise
of death.