The Civilizing Process

Since the civilizing process began
most of us came to breathe by decree and not 
in the grace of our mothers, but for our better 
we would gather our warmth and self all
day and all night and let harden our skin 
to roleplay rock 
to let them chip away a shape 
everyday in their idleness
or flatten ourselves to be 
the canvas that accepts a gentle caress 
or stiff bristles for the brain that 
holds the deed to our breath.
 
Since the civilizing process began
we would often sing amid some new end times 
finely-crafted by the weathered and 
practiced hands of a hungry neighbor 
who, gripping, 
would squeeze our soft throat 
housing a tongue that clucked out 
the name of some other ancient or creator 
and our eyes bulging in that moment scan
the corners of the hovel where 
our history ignites in a flicker 
and then dims to cool waste, 
and scan for a now-charred manger. 
 
Since the civilizing process began
we wore red and blush and we 
swallowed fruit and time, where 
passing into cold meat then felt 
no different from now and you would 
laugh and you would sleep in 
a similar sun that slipped into 
so many rivers still flowing