Survivor

Survivor

The silence of my younger years

has become the silence

of my older times

The world around me growing up

hated me

The religious claimed they were

salt of the earth

Any farmer knows

if they spread salt on the earth

nothing grows

They spread salt on my life

Yet through that poison

I still grew

Then HIV then COVID

Still with all around me

I've shut down

What is missing

Is love

Life to me now

Is like picking 

Tiny black lint

Out of a new white towel

Sisyphus weeps

If being homosexual is life

For you

Or transgendered

Anything different

South Dakota

Is a damn horrible place

Or anyplace where people

Believe in hate

Teach hate

Speak hate

See the world through 

Their hate eyes

And if a part of the indigenous

Where your ancestors lived

Is where you are hated

Not all no but enough

Enough

Barry G. Wick