Plugged into Patriarchy

No Disclaimes.

I am floating away from this civilization;

each adventure becomes more telling/brilliant/real,

as I meander using my intellectual/emotional compass

to guide my feet.

They take me through time & space,

my conversations lead me to deconstruct the lies

permeating the physical realities we live in.

Deconstruct the underlying social dynamics

where we project perpetration & victimization

because we’re stuck in patriarchal colonialism.

& I come home to find my roommates

with the blue glow of a wide screen plasma

blinking rapidly, un-noticeably,

lighting their profiles in the dark.

Fingers click & clack at plastic buttons

as they inch closer to the stories

that play out on the television:
Call of Duty 2 Black Ops.

The vantage points of 2 soldiers

divided by a horizontal split in the screen;

these men are playing war.

Explosions. Blasts. Bang. Shooting.

Reload. Shooting. Virtual killing.

Respawn. Do it all over again.

They see a game,

I see our destruction as human beings

& I cannot remain silent.

--Video game technology is moving at an alarming rate--

I start --from the gamers controlling drones

shoot on the screen & produce real life casualties,

to the 3D worlds to be released before long

where humans can further act out war

as though they are there.

The advertisements target our youth,

indoctrinating them in the dogma of war culture.

At school the recruiters funnel those

neither college nor prison bound

to be pawns, like the ones on the screen,

except they can’t respawn.

& these recruits are so innumerable

that the state disregards their deaths,

carries on with its imperial plans,

the war machine keeps turning--

the gamers keep playing.

& as I’m talking their reactions are all too familiar;

rationalization, suppression, repression, denial.

& it’s hard not to take it personally.

My voice feels snuffed, disregarded, labeled as

as crazy/dissident/sensitive.

They will not accept these truths.
A comrade among them, who hears

what I am saying, contributes momentarily

before he’s ultimately seduced by

the machismo of the machine.

Patriarchal-war-game culture

has killed the part of themselves

that will listen to me & the natural femininity

in my speech, in themselves.

When the gamers wear their headsets

& shout into the hollow world wide web

the homophobia is rife.

It’s “f****t” this & “suck my dick”,

enjoying anal sex becomes an insult somehow.

& that may be something they like themselves,

& I know that in those who yell the most--

all day, plugged in, screaming “f**k it in the a*s”,

stroking to the video carnage-- are closeted,

isolated, out of touch with their queer sexualities.

This type of gamer used to live with me,

his out-of-shape, gross body,

sweating milky, no communication,

no consent established,

as he wraps his hands around my neck

& smothers my voice.

& how far does this all go?
The war they play is far removed from the

rigid hierarchies that abuse & kill parts of the men

who volunteer for the force.

The war my roommates play is far removed from

the material destruction on the fields,

the bloody dismemberment, bodies erupting,

spraying fleshy shrapnel. It’s as far removed

as the scientists developing the Atomic Bomb &

the pilot of the B-29 that dropped that s**t on

August 6th, 1945 from the actual genocide that ensued.

They were so far from it, they stopped believing

that matter matters. Instead they thought that the atom--

the fundamental building block of our day-to-day realities--

is worth breaking/smashing/destroying

to level a city in a moment,

to blast searing waves of radiation

glowing dragons that kill & mame

hundreds of thousands, instantaneously.

The city blazes for days, trapping & burning

relief parties from neighboring towns.
The clouds gather, dank, heavy, radiated,

& pour down black rain

that sticks to the skin like tar

toxic poison for those not even in the city

on August 6th. It will kill them, maybe years later,

but it will kill them.

My roommates may never come to drop an atom bomb,

or hold a gun facing civilians in Pakistan or Afghanistan,

or lead a nation into the fog of war,

but they’re being prepared for that.

The 60’s in Indonesia lead to a genocide of half a million.

Uh-merican-backed death squads stifled/brutalized/killed

anyone connected with the lefties--

connected to the left side of their brains.

The killers would crowd the theaters.

American gangster films-- projected lies

on the silver screen-- kill their compassion.

& the men dance across the street

the same ways that people do in the musicals.

& when they enter the warehouses

by the church of American video

they slaughter their victims

the same ways that people do in the gangster films.

Did the Hollywood writers know that

their imaginations of violence were

breathed into life in more ways than just on screens?
When Call of Duty 2 Black Ops,

the game my roommates were playing,

was released the advertising clips

were uncanny to film previews.

How will those stories be conducted

into the material world through these friends?

I guess what I’m saying is that media

in this culture is toxic. Not only do the devices--

the smartphones, laptops, gaming systems--

radiate microwaves through our bodies,

but they seek to mold our minds

into good consumers & good soldiers--

pawns of a corporate state.

We are the media.

We must take back control of these stories,

speak our truths, instead of playing out lies.

It can heal you. It was in this way that

the survivors of the atom bomb coped.

Transcribing the events sparked

introspection & self-restoration.

Sharing stories with other victims

developed an understanding of what had happened.

Writing empowered them to fight the radiation sickness,

sharing that writing empowered others to do the same.

We all experience trauma at the hands of a

patriarchal, colonial, corporate state;

from victims of sexual assault

to poor youth recruited to the frontlines of battlefields,

from Trayvon Martin

to the 10 transwomen severely attacked

in our city’s downtown over the past 4 months

The less we remain silent about this violence,

the history of violence & the microaggressions

that contribute to it, the more we can bring

healing to this world of lies.

As you speak, spit cinders of truth,

our own dragons smoking, as we burn the state.