The following is part of the 2019 May Poetry Feature at C4SS.  

Momma, I’m gonna try real hard not to die today.
I wanna promise, I’ll come home. But if I don’t-
If some pig murders me, whatever the talking heads say-

Someone needed to do this. It had to be me, okay?
They’ll maybe try to make my corpse say what I won’t.
Momma, I’m gonna try real hard not to die today.

If I do though, just know that I wouldn’t go another way.
Ask me to stop giving you nightmares, but I don’t.
If some pig murders me, whatever the talking heads say-

All I did was make bits of color in a world of gray-
I don’t apologize for that. I’m sorry, but I won’t.
Momma, I’m gonna try real hard not to die today.

Sometimes by writing, sometimes fighting, I took any way
to know I was alive. I dreamt, as the dead don’t.
If some pig murders me, whatever the talking heads say-

I ain’t sorry. I wish I’d do it every day
Someone needed to do this. Who will, if I won’t?
Momma, I’m gonna try real hard not to die today.
If some pig murders me, whatever the talking heads say-