Poster-board smile, you were so much simpler.
We were both too
busy…caught up in
different
                    realms.
 
You were always an invisible ruler,
pulling on heartstrings with pianist’s fingers.
 
I was a silent spider, spinning words on a silk thread,
Weaving webs of truths you never understood (and never will)
Reworking stories into weapons, ripping into your picture frame view.
While I saw you––cutting through those crowds like a wolf crowned in wool.
I cried wolf, they laughed, you flashed
your
        sharp
                   teeth... (and I smiled back).
 
You call me Oppressor; I call you Propagandist.
Champions of our charade,
Yours are for the camera,
And mine are encoded, encrypted,
Let me make you into my Enemy.
You’re just as dangerous as me.
I’ve got to put you down.
Blood shrikes dancing around a rose bush.
 
Let me bring you up,
(Would you like a crown of gold?)

​

Just to tear you down.
(Would you like a crown of thorns?)

​

Losing is the hardest game for us to win.
(Would you like to lose with me?)
 
Learn to fall before the wind
catches your wings.
(Would you like to win with me?)
 
Once, I could see that strain around your eyes,
or was it just
Another manipulation?
 
Flip a coin, heads or tails
There’s no winning
unless you predetermine the outcome 
Propagandist, setting the game board
I moved the chess piece of my mind
but you were already
                                      ten-thousand steps
                                                                         ahead of me.
 
The propagandists, they tell you what you need (they, they say they’re what you need),
while the poets talk of tragedies in past tense (their words turn spilled blood into ink).
 
Propagandist, it’s been so long since I’ve been seen (in the way you used to, in the way you used to look at me)
My reflection in your eyes, humanity, would you like to make peace instead of war?
 
I didn’t think so,
Brothers in arms (gun barrels pointed at each-other)
Enemies on the battlefield
All a part of a puppet army (we thought we were the puppeteers)
Toy soldiers
Waving invisible banners (flags & banners, none of it matters)

You tell lies using my tricks,
My tricks, which I use to use for the truth,
but the problem remains: 
No one knows the difference.
(Are you a Poet or a Propagandist?)

​