To Learn About a Drummer

Is to learn about the soul

Or the dirt at which feet touch

Down and grasp at pebbles, particles,

Trash, and breathe out the smell of poison

As it spreads from the diaphragm

To every finger tip of a tree.

Chess, checkers

Makes me vomit

Like when a drummer plays without

The passion of a thousand sons

Born of narcissistic parents,

Alcoholics, cops, colonizers,

Crippling anxiety asking why try

When you’ll always disappoint your ancestors,

Not just the living, not just me.

Wherever you look

Is someone looking right back

At all that you aren’t, and will never be. 

This is what it feels like

To be lost and never alone

Regardless of what they say

In the tabloids.