recovery

Spent poets
don't die,
their words

just change hands,
returned to the register
then passed out again
for change
on promises
bigger
than the price

I thought
when I didn't use my words,
I'd get to hoard them,
that Webster would give me
his signet ring and say,
Okay Ruby,

here come those years of famine,
so before your syllables
devour everything in sight
and still aren't one millionth as fat as you,
lock them up and
pass them out sparingly.

Instead of mics,
hit doors.

Instead of crowds yearning
for black belts on paper,
try talking to people
who want to shoot
the next person that knocks on their door,

people burned so bad
piles of ashes form themselves
into mouthes to say DAYUM!
and send them moisturizer.

Instead of rocking in my house,
try rocking a block where every
single
house
is boarded up,
and the doughboys
tell you Reagan was gangsta.

At least they know.

But I saved up.

And it wasn't enough.

cars were made into tanks.

and i traded rhymes
for trying to change the times,

maybe now I get my words back.