(9) and (10)

(9)

The big city
What a marvel of human history
Build, sprawl, consume land
Who is responsible for the conglomerate of people,
Who all have the exact same mindset?
Cities consume people who consume goods
Who are sold individualism all the same
Just like the goods that all the people equally need

The big city
A place where being able to be yourself
Is exalted over being able to be your community
The togetherness necessitated by industrialization
The togetherness that industrialists refuse to promote
Because they want to sell you that individualism is buying
Buying the same things that everyone else buys
And together we buy it all

The big city
This heap of humanity being groomed to work
From New York to Bangkok and Beijing
To Guadalajara and Seattle, and London, and Los Angeles and Lagos
We come together
Not for our collective need or sustenance or understanding
Not because we need each other
But because we must feed off each other

The big city
Filled with chaos and conformity
That hopes to live up to the delusions of hometown favorites
And hopes to be a beacon, a satellite for future cities
That hope to be distinguishable and unique
But still charge their inhabitants to wake up and work
And go to sleep and pay
And wonder why we let ourselves to be forced to feel alone

(10)

I rode an elephant
And it did not make me feel good
Actually, I still feel awful and wish what I can't
I wish I could close down the park, and I should
Tourists get too much amusement out of this carnival ride

A four ton beauty bred to carry my 230 pounds of guilt
I know that it is not for me to decide
How a people who have lived with these elephants forever
Should not ever care about my input

Taming an elephant is a skill
But when I was offered ivory jewelry
I wished that the elephant I was riding would kill
And free itself from this tomfoolery

I know as a tourist from the beacon of capital
That the bodies of animals are ours to exploit
I realize that our society forces environments to adapt
And everything around them are fodder for our sustenance

But I could not help but hate myself
And hate the Japanese family on the elephant in front of me
And wish that my son, my lady, and myself were somewhere else
I hoped that he tossed us off his back and ran free

I could not help but hate the White family in back of me
And think about my son's and my own Blackness
And think about my native Mexican lady
And understand that the world subjugates nature, we are all guilty

To keep the elephant inline
Our Thai guide would use this tool to poke
And with every poke, every time
I became this misanthrope