Vamps

Palm or palmetto
Use these vices as a vice to grip
The vestiges of adolescent self-confidence

Splintered
Fractured at each limb
The mud I trudge through
Spread over the shag carpet
Like butter on bread

Swallow used needles from
Obsolete turntables
spitting them back at the
Board of directors
Until they are pinned to their
Sense of self-importance
Like butterflies to a picture frame

Pounding on stretched goat hide
To hide from hunters in search of fresh game
Our loose jeans and piercings
Frightens and excites them

Our deformations welcome additions
If they can be used to defame us

It is not permissible to complain
Abstain from the abuse
The kids are just as lost
Like the funds allegedly allocated for their
Educations

This world has made them anonymous
Alienates them
Chides them to plug into the boogie monsters
We tried to keep away in bedtime stories

They want much less than we can offer
They want to be real
Recognized
No longer downsized to wage labor

They dream of false fame
Because their master tells them they are no one
Unless they play the game

And those with palms extended
Are viewed as the menace
And cut down like palmettos in a nature reserve
On Southern shores
Replaced by plastic fauna
Because it is much more cost effective
Take care of the dead

The living are too burdensome
They take away from the overhead
Rather mummify the whole world
Than go into the red

We are splintered
Undecided on which plantation master
To cut cane for

Went to work for the local bodeguero but
The nighborhood mafia has already taken their cut
Of his wife and child

What more is there to make
When surrenders appears to be
The most effective revolutionary option?