COMPLICITY

Two of the band had fed her drugs and booze
then fucked her arse. Their set that night was cool.
I played their album all the time at school.
Half of the harm we’ve done we did not choose.

There is a small component in my phone
that needs a metal, that is dug from soil
watered in blood. And then of course there’s oil.
The soldier smashed his face to shards of bone.

He’d fought them for his land. Each time I fly
to see my love, or call, or send a note,
blood is the fuel, the ink in which I wrote.
That I live modestly, so many die.

I write in protest. My most honest verse
weighs less than their last scream, or sigh, or curse.