your mind was made up
centuries before you were born
there's hatred in your dna
& in the color of your skin
& between the lines of the only book you've ever read
passed down from on high
courtesy of that great authoritarian dictator
his is the world to which we aspire
his loathing
gives all our sin its flavor
his is the apocalypse
we bring crashing down like Samson
us & them
flattened to soup
under the same crumbling roof
your mind's made up
you can't understand
the rhyme or reason
of time & seasons
of lizard brains & vestigial tales
& the distinct possibility
that one day your soul won't be there anymore
worse still
perhaps it was n