the slaving man

Every morning, you press your spine

to the newspaper

like it might flatten your conscience.

Funny how you say “community”

like it’s a kind of deodorant.

There’s a child coughing up staples

two blocks down—

but you’re more worried about

who put graffiti on your trash bin.

The city’s going to hell, you mutter,

as if it wasn’t already

beneath your damn lawn.

(What do you call a system

that feeds on bruises

and still asks for tips?

You call it normal.

You call it Tuesday.)

There’s a scream stitched into the pavement,

but asphalt’s cheaper than therapy,

and silence is subsidized.

You treat empathy like it’s lead paint.

Scrape it off only when someone inspects.

No one ever inspects.

You mistake suffering for schedule delays.

You mistake decay for someone else’s fault.

You mistake everything for anything

but your own goddamn breath

fogging the glass.

You kneel only when there’s a camera.

You give only when there's a receipt.

You bleed only in metaphors—

convenient, clean,

with a moral tagged on like a barcode.

But your God is leaking.

The copper’s turning green.

You still say it’s rain.

You still sip the water.

You still wonder

why your insides are screaming

while the house burns down