The Sacred Gift of Life by Josh Bond 

For years and decades as long and far 
as my distant memory will stretch
I've survived under the thumb of an odd belief 
ruled by a crooked conviction 
— felt so true to me at the time —
like a holy motto picked 
from the pockets of the fates
a personal mantra played on repeat 
of a prophecy I was forced to fulfill 
a tragic destiny blazed across my brow
I HAVE NO RIGHT TO MY OWN LIFE

The branding attracted certain people like flies 
to a pile of shit — No right to life? predators 
wondered, How very suited to me! 
To let a right to life go to waste would be a crying
shame, I better take it to boost my own. 
It's only fair, an honest catch... 
and before I had a chance to think twice  
or change my befuddled mind
I got caught in a web of duties and vows
commitments, traditions, and lies

never free to make my own choices
never given the time to select or decide
I was told the world is my oyster 
treated as a mollusk in its own shell 
firmly locked behind bars like a jailbird 
confined to a solitary life in the dark 
the doors opened at my jailers' behest 
to let me out every now and again
only to skip, hop and run to the tune 
of their whims and whistles

when others claimed license to the life 
that's my own, overriding the birthright 
I had failed to acknowledge 
some took liberties so broad and brazen
til finally the message I needed to hear 
screamed into my face loud and sharp
made me question the fatal motto 
adopted in the fetal phase 
recognised the brainglitch 
my younger self had suffered
corrected the unsavoury pattern
learned I'd been half right all the 
while drawing false conclusions 
to make the half circle whole

How can anyone have a right to life —
never mind a life that belongs to another 
— when life itself is never a right 
but always a sacred gift?

_______________________

Define: Sacred, Gift, Life: #TakingBackTheSigns
by Pablo Cipher_O Martinez

Matrix architecture made of words

serpentine legalese

spoken evocations with ease

splitting forked tongues

touching brain tissues into hemispheres

and issues for a lifetime

teaching the time of day and

the way

To see which of us

will

assimilate

Early onset of state funded gymnastics
obstacle courses with trail markers
animal farms and native reservations
knowing how to leash the beasts
makin fun with it gettin dumb with it
dumbed down processed lobotomies

majority brings down minority
totality annihilates individuality

and do not rebel lest ye be crucified
by the personas of your peers
pulling you into reincarnation of souls

Sometimes I want to rebel because [profanity]

drivers of distinction into veins

mind ravaged by savage realities freed to see
all that you wanted to be you can be
even the very language at the core and more
my alphabet is a rare inheritance
refined defined down to

the

deepest

depths

of

the

design: The World is Mine. To define

***

Cipher
Pohms
***

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