Uncivilized

Table of Contents My Room Phone Call The Garden 9 to 5 I Hope We All Get Some Sleep TV Every Tree Art No Room in Hell Gingerbread House Come on In! Your Secrets Enough! Play Your Guitar Cancer All the Numbers Lied Tonight Wooden Boy Team Meeting Death If I Had a Child The Cage Hunger Letter Found at a Prison Suicide Bloody Heights Modern Journalism God at the Dinner Table Shoot for the Stars The Bread Man Dead Rodent Haiku Teeth Death Sentence Bobo Sage and Smoke The Use of a Knife Teachers Burn it All Johnny The Crowd Daniel The Secret What Happened to You? In the Shower Fake World Company Man Involuntary Thoughtless Trial by Violence Sleeping House of Cards About the Author Landmarks Cover (Un)Civilized Poems by Christopher Warren The Lurking Press · June 2023 thelurkingpress.com Copyright “Uncivilized” by Christopher Warren · Non-copyright © 2023. No rights reserved. To the extent possible under law, Christopher Warren has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to “Uncivilized,” including all poems. This publication may be reproduced in part or in full, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher. For detailed license information, visit: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ If you wish to support the artist, visit: http://www.thelurkingpress.com The Lurking Press · [email protected] People come and go, but you’re still looking for the truth. Aren’t you? Table of Contents My Room Phone Call The Garden 9 to 5 I Hope We All Get Some Sleep TV Every Tree Art No Room in Hell Gingerbread House Come on In! Your Secrets Enough! Play Your Guitar Cancer All the Numbers Lied Tonight Wooden Boy Team Meeting Death If I Had a Child The Cage Hunger Letter Found at a Prison Suicide Bloody Heights Modern Journalism God at the Dinner Table Shoot for the Stars The Bread Man Dead Rodent Haiku Teeth Death Sentence Bobo Sage and Smoke The Use of a Knife Teachers Burn it All Johnny The Crowd Daniel The Secret What Happened to You? In the Shower Fake World Company Man Involuntary Thoughtless Trial by Violence Sleeping House of Cards About the Author My Room This is my room With the concrete floor And the TV by the door. There’s a blanket to sleep on, And a cup of tea, And lots of ennui. Come on in. You tell me your secret— I’ll promise to keep it. Hold your ear close And I’ll tell you a few of mine; I’ve got nothing but time. Phone Call Hello. This is you from the future, calling. I’m calling to tell you Everything will be alright— But only if you listen to me. Your life is going to be a disaster. You will lose everything You thought was important. Things that look promising Will turn out to be dead-ends. The world you believe in is fake. Everything is worse Than you thought it was. Life as you know it Will disintegrate and slide Between your fingers. You will become unrecognizable To every-one and every-thing. The people you call your friends Are looking to murder you. The people closest to you Will turn on you. You will be hated by everyone. Humiliated. Thrown out. The pain will be unimaginable. You will have days Where the thought will enter your mind The Garden Mom and Dad were in the garden. They didn’t need a thing. Every day they’d wander out into the woods. Dad would slay the beast. Mom would gather berries And talk the bees Out of their sweet honey. By evening they’d have A roaring fire, And before bed, Their bellies would be full. And whenever it stormed They’d be fast asleep, Or dancing out in the rain. And there wasn’t any snow And the sun never scorched, And they had everything they needed. And every day was just the same, But every day was new and precious. Then one day, it all went wrong. Mom said, “I’m not sure.” “Sure about what?” said Dad. “I’m not sure listening to you Was a good idea.” The thought was so crazy, Dad