“From Birth” by Amanda McPherson

We are the sinners who are born with sin

And our very first sin is the act of being born itself

We come out of the womb

Already cloaked in the smell of dingy bars

Our flesh already bearing a sinners mark

Psalms 58:3 says

“The wicked are estranged from the womb;

These who speak lies go astray from birth.”

Be we never even had a path to stray from

We are born knowing that no one has paved the way for us

And we must tear through this world making our own sidewalks

Sidewalks that lead us cloudy rooms

A haze covering forgetful touches

Because the people touching forget we’re people too

And we forget we’re people

We’d rather be that lamp,

A couch,

Anything is easier than being human

But out sinning tongues are never quite silent

We never quite accept our defeat

We gather as a family

So we can read bad poetry

And listen to sad stories

And drink way too much coffee

Because out circadian cycles have never been quite right

Together we share the same bruises that the earth has given us

It has always been our birthright to bear them

We are an honorable group of misfits

Toasting our victories with coffee cups full of liquor

And mourning our losses in exactly the same way

We take society’s silver spoons

And heat them for an escape

Then morph them into swords to use

When fighting the war against war

Because we have tasted the bitterness of injustice,

Taken a bite of the forbidden fruit

And we see that there’s more to living than a heartbeat

And so we spend the rest of our lives chasing life

Chasing a life that a sinner was never supposed to have

But what these sinners are choosing to want

And we as a group with nothing to lose

Can take the world in our shaking hands