Candlestick Kids: Advice on Corner People

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Jaych

7:30

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This story starts as any good story aught
At the unsolicited prompting of my lyft driver
On one of those nights that I did not want to speak with my lyft driver
At All
The conversation starts innocent enough
He asks how my day was
I tell him I made a friend
He says He made a friend a month ago
She turned out to be toxic
He tells me that she was young and that he does not understand the young
That you can't fight everything
That even if you are passionate about something you do not have to burn about it
That his fire is gone
That he does not understand the walking candles the kids have become
He says that thing I hate so very fucking much
That thing they all say
He says you can't change the world
Hey says you just have to be satisfied with changing your own little corner
And that will be enough

Well?
Is it?
Has it been?
Will it be?
Enough?
See I have only ever met these corner people
Tend your own garden grandmas that did just that
Curled up in hard dirt
Crawled around on conservative knees like the good lord said too
Stewed on nothing inspirational at all except what could  be done with that unremarkable patch of dirt
They made beautiful gardens
And behind powerful pearly white picket fences they declared they had done enough
Scuffed up tough dirt in their own font lawn to bear them glorious green grass
And if anybody asked for a handout
They would do so fifty percent of the time
Because they were good people
Then head down to the church steeple at the end of the street and pray for god to sort out the rest
The request being that one garden was enough
Well?
Is it?
Has it been?
Will it be?
Enough?
See I have only ever met these corner people
Do what you can cousins that have helped maybe five people in their whole lives
Oh sorry I forgot you gave petty cash to your wife's drunk sister
When cousin Sam had a blister and you bandaged it
Let's round your grand total up to ten oh yes then I can color you Christ
Oh mighty one messiah
Hero of the people
Martyr stuck to the pyre of please let my corner have been enough
It's not
It has not been
It will not be
See
All the corner people
Walking through the wide open fields of the world
Scolding you into believing the world is a corner place?
Like some labyrinth with nothing but nooks
And it almost is
They have turned this place small
Through sharp looks in the mall and grocery store
Sharper elbows in the door to the bathroom
Grinding their glances sharp enough
To cut this world into the sized place they will only ever have to interact with themselves in
Like they are at home or something
People driven by cornering this great big world into pocket sized note
Spout wrote memorization of the same tired line their parents tied around their throats in necklaces
Recklessly saving all the rest of the beads
To be millstones choking grandchildren to their fucking knees
And you are gone with God
Crying my yoke is easy and my burden is light
I'm sure it was

Because when you corner people go to the corner store to get avocados
Oh yes I'm bringing in the fucking Avocados
When you go to the store to get avocados
It's a global world
Where giant metal birds have unfurled marvelous wings to bring you the finest things
But if the birds chirp sing about the all places they came from
If bird burp belch the squelch of migrants melt beneath a hot sun
If there is so much as one peep
Of the sweet symphony of expanse and pain
Beyond your name carved on that sign at the end of the driveway
It is suddenly a corner world again

Corner People
You nasty little mole people huddled up behind white picket fences
Swearing you are defenseless to do anything more than you're doing right now
Tell me
What happens to the rest
When you look out beyond your fence
When you've done all that you can
What happens to the
Great big no mans land strung out between
What's your and what's mine
How do we fill in the space between the battle lines
You leave it up to chance
Tell your kids its somebody else's job
They need not apply
Need not try to fix the world
Because that corner they planted needs tending too
God forbid the fruit rots
Kids growing up in a modern world
With the world at their fingertips
On their ear buds
On the radio waves
Super highways
Kids living in a wide world
With corner advice
Where being right means
Pretending Martin Luther king set out to change his neighborhood
Make believing into thinking the labor movement was done to achieve small things
That reaching the speed of sonic boom was done, setting foot on the moon was done
One lazy afternoon by Aunt Sue and her soon to be boyfriend
Right after they assured themselves and their favorite nephew
That nothing good ever happened to those who try

Corner people lie and convince us the fight is already won
Or already lost
Nothing we do is going to cause the slightest bit of change
That there is no use trying to be a hero
As if the world has not regularly been saved by heroes
By the ambitious in the throes of what-can-I-do-crisis
Dear Candlestick Kids
Do not believe them
These corner people
It is a wide world
You can change it
Do not let corner people back you into a corner of dis-empowerment
Let them sit on the corner of their heart dog ear the pages in the history book they think came for nothing

Go on about your business
Tell the Lyft driver to mind his
If you bother him
Good
It is doubtful he will bother you back
He'd have to leave his driveway for that
And if they do make it that far
Good
At least something got him out of the house
Unfolded the world in his pocket
Uncornered the people content to hang millstones round robin's neck
Made them listen to them birds
Teach them there isn't enough light in this world for their fire to be gone
Go on and teach them why the kids are walking candlesticks
Sick with enough ambition despite what their parents did to them
Tell them, you're not sure
If it is
If it has been
If It it will be
Enough
But at least you will have seen something outside of your own little corner

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