What Matters

What matters is the terror
that makes the indignity
pale before
the need to cry out
in self-defense
of your body,
notwithstanding the
threat to your mind
or the threat to your
voice--
but the terror of control.

That word,
control,
the specter of unseemliness
and the collective distaste
at the messiness
of so-called undignified
or unrespectable people;
the idea there should be self-control--

it's a lie.

When others have control
of you,
they strip that dignity and
they determine what seems
and make a new story
from the silence
of your stolen voice.

That undignified self
is a self robbed of dignity.
That unrespectable self,
is a self denied respect.

That control--
that some people have when
they shoot themselves while in handcuffs.

That control--
that some people have
when they find the strength to heave themselves up
by a bed sheet.

That control--
that some people have when they remain a threat
after ten or twenty or thirty
bullets fill their bodies.

That control--
that some people have when they
can provoke getting their body slammed
with a certain look in their eyes.

That control--
when all the education and self-determination
end up in an altercation
and a trip to a weekend
incarceration--no round trip.

That control, is a control
done unto,
and is done without respect for
your life.

And that is what matters.

And that is a situation very much out of control.