(An excerpt from Diane Birch’s song, “Unfkd”)


Tongue tied and twisted
Always comes out wrong, comes out wrong
There’s a time bomb ticking
You’ve only got so long, got so long…
The hole in your head where your fire used to be
Cause tomorrow will come and it might be a little more:

Untouched
You’re just a little more
F’ed up than you used to be, you
Are untouched by any semblance of sanity
Screwed up by circumstances that left you to be
Trampled by your own insecurities;
Insecure in society
Social anxiety monopolizing your existence in its entirety
And to think all you wanted was to be seen by somebody
Regarded as a little more
Little more than a nobody
But how they all now find the shame in sympathizing
Because no longer can there be a disguising of your truest nature

You, are a splintering, arrow of Cupid’s
A dove, with a gnarled beak
After trying and succeeding in clipping its own wings
You are your own undoing because
You could not afford to sue Mother Earth
For her negligent child keeping
You are a demon singing hymns and a Christian blaspheming
Remaining untouched by any positive meaning
You, are a fractured definition and a too-short serenade
You gave up hope
Because it never filled up your barren dinner table anyway

How does it feel, trying to swallow your umbilical cord
Suck, down your existence, dismissing any ownership to your body
Like a paternity test returned back negatory
Pleading your mama’s vagina to regurgitate
The seed that planted thee
Because you’re a tree with decaying roots
A bending Birch, see-sawing its branch
Back & forth like a vertical pendulum
Till all that’s left is a stump. Sheltered in a forest of grief
Snapping own twigs; you’ve given self no room to breathe, you
Make believe that your bounteous leaves are all to be
Needed to thrive

Yet you remain untouched, misunderstood
Bound by nooses of unintelligence
Nescience crowding your mind – your atmosphere
Like beings in a vault of carbon monoxide
You are silently shattering yourself
Uprooting
Eroding any possibility that remained for betterment
You will stay f***ed
Because bravery made a coward of you
When it commanded, demanded you
Shout, “Enough!”
I leave you untouched
I cannot help;
Since you have, I too, gave up