Luck is not enough to be thankful for

A voice in my head walks me down a path like a guidance counselor does.

Feel lucky you weren’t born faded.

To live under a bridge.

0:20We dirty pink clothes fastened like curtains on a home inside a tunnel.

Where you can see outsiders who get too close.

But they can’t see you, only darkness.

I fight against luck.

Luck of birthright or birth luck.

Like a potluck of dreams where everyone brings dishes fixed with illusions of what they have and what they have not.

And should be grateful for it all.

Born lucky on the right side of a borderline and the wrong side of a city zone.

Born lucky between a rich school and a poor school, between parents who can’t give you anything but love, but feel like they’ve failed you.

You’re lucky.

You have a job.

Be thankful.

You’re lucky, you’re not living on the streets.

Be thankful.

People are starving in China, don’t you know?

Can one be thankful for a black hole because it exists somewhere else, far, far away?

What can one be towards a solar system that makes some people starve, that makes some people thrive?

What is being thankful other than localized amnesia?

Juiced to forget, bruised to steal attention away from what matters.

Putting food on the table.

Emma Goldman once said to a starving crowd in the Great Depression, but not so great next to a pandemic 100 years later, before she was arrested for the inciting words, she yelled, Ask for work.

If they do not give you work, ask for bread.

If they do not give you work or bread.

Then take bread.

What is being thankful for then except the will to act and act by demand, the will to receive and receive kindly both a will against starvation.

What is being but a battle over consciousness, a battle to survive with dignity.