There was a set date and time for everything once

There was a set date and time for everything once, 

and then I had to sell myself for bread. 

Let me think now, well yes I suppose toy boats sank everywhere that day. 

The world felt like razors in your underwear –  

as the doves exploded in the sky and it rained oily feathers and guts –  

upon us all for our sins or maybe that’s just how I felt. 

It’s hard to remember the exact time I lost it all. 

Unparalleled heights within panopticons speaks volumes about priorities – 

That are askew like broken latches to doors we’ve all at least all 

peeped through like thieves (and regretted it). 

It left me starving on some freight train, (and yes it was raining), 

and so on and so forth; the ticket-takers-all smile.  

Abandoning us with men who eat rails and spit bricks whole,  

I forgot who I was and now have nails in my hands! 

There was a voice of balance and reason in me once;  

Until the day we got sent to a dirty Louisiana prison at 15. 

Nobody cried for me that day not even me. 

But that very small place inside began to grow and grow and GROW –  

as I witnessed the death of a child I wish I could say he passed in sleep –  

it was ugly and he was ugly as he shuddered and contorted in the vomit –  

the blackness was painful and consumptive like fire that is water that is ink –  

so I tattooed my condolences upon my flesh for you and me but mostly –  

                                        for him. 

And so the story drags on and the needles are tapping then scratching then pounding –

the blood runs down my face like tear drops as I burn myself over and over. 

I wish mankind would just dissipate, cease and desist –  

                      I wish I were never born. 

Still that very small space inside it grows and grows and GROWS –  

this TV baby’s wasted life is a testimony of your children’s genre. 

Don’t ignore your future people; that gray area soon turns black, 

and your swimming through a sea of wet feathers and guts and glass.  

So don’t you think it’s time we pointed our fingers in our own faces? 

I’m not special and neither are you or you or you so get a grip. 

because our gripes are the broken record on this sticky blood soaked machine.  

It’s warped because of me and you and you but especially ‘cause of that boy, 

That little boy that I had to strangle to survive the one nobody cried for 

until now as I put balls of twine some GI Joes and bubble gum on his grave. 

I ‘m noting that my blackness turns to gray as I search for his soul –  

to say I’m sorry because I wanted to grow up too fast, and so did you –  

and you and you and we all have to make time freeze so we can look –  

for the souls we let fly out of our windows –  

                to become the doves that exploded above our heads. 

                                                                        C. Aaron Fette 

C. Aaron Fette

I want a place where freedom doesn’t coexist with ugliness  

even if I have to shoot myself for the ticket 

Drugs just don’t do it any more  

and acceptance is just a lie so close to denial they breathe  

upon one another as days turn into weeks my creativity  

cannot feed my spirit any more than my stomach  

it only serves to mark time and place like little paper tombstones  

as I watch the face of our mother melt with acid in her eyes  

and smoke upon her breath I cry as I watch my people  

die from their freedom over and over I contemplate the bullet  

resting in chamber upon springs and behind the barrel that   

I’ve placed to my head for a cold steel reminder of my  

options death calls me softly but fear is my anchor  

a guess its not quite time to fly so I just sit here  

voided watching and waiting with return to sender stamped on my face 

A king in his castle of ice and snow 2 tears and pennies from heaven or guilt 

Always with the new places … 

the getting, the slipping, the fitting in 

its rough remembering which faces 

the catalogue of habits and quirks 

and the pantomimes matching of old hurts. 

the learning after time of what won’t work … 

I seem to have a problem finding what does 

My moments feathers are tarred with what was 

with what’s gone and its song 

with my destructive instructive – doing wrong- 

don’t get me right its not some self hatred, 

just a compendium of compulsion and pain abatement … 

Poor impulse control … it warned on the papers at my parole 

Yuk face label on a broken bottle still cuts 

Battle scars, then trips afar, repeat. 

same time same channel same scandal as last week 

all that changes are the bricks and the faces 

I call this arrangement the shipment of graces 

I roll through estrangement shoplifting at liquor stores, 

slick sweat yesterdays derangement through sap sick pores, 

telling little lies to strangers and laughing about it later 

Concentric circles to love and truth shits lies much greater … 

Hamster wheels treads swimming away from whirlpools 

and sharks don’t grow legs running away from the cure fools … 

We gotta swim, even in sleep, we drink to survive 

drink in the change, drink in the pains, drink everything alive. 

But still that tired little hamster swims thirsty 

Trying to escape the worst in me. Crying to reverse me; 

Promising between gasps that Love and truth can reimburse me 

I thrash to devour him and drink sin before it hurts me … 

I am the piper the rats and the children 

I pray for enough promises 

paint places to fulfill them. 

Seemingly random violences AND kindnesses headline this soul 

Wasted time wasted truth wasted talent  

Let me tell you something children I can’t get wasted without it 

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Aaron was abused at STRAIGHT INC when we mistakenly sought treatment there. Ending the Troubled Teen Industry is a group of survivors seeking to end programs like STRAIGHT INC who abuse children placed in their care. They may be reached at:

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