Yellow Nights

Everything is yellow here. Cloudy piss yellowbrown. Yellow watermarks from a sickly jaundiced flood. Everything-- the once white ceilings, the faded curtains, the brown glazed walls; nicotine spreads its mottled stain across the house. The house that Big Tobacco built.

The lights cast yellow shadows from beneath stained lampshades. All light is dark here.

I close my door to breathe. I close my door to eat without the taste of tobacco.

I close my door to protect the photos of my son and my grandaughter; framed on the wall and on the dresser.

To remind me I made a home for myself, for my child--out of literally nothing, and I can do it again.

Why do the Gilded Ones separate us from our children.

With designer laws, as one warrior queen put it.

They do it because to the poor, our children are our empires.

Because to the gilded ones, ruling their own empires is not enough. To them, it's not enough, owning most of the world. They want it all.

Almost midnight, Sunday. I can sleep now. It doesn't matter when I wake tomorrow. I can let go. So tired, so sick.

But I love them so strong, and tough.

(I just want you to know that, my precious ones.)