Poem transcribed as performed.
They say I’m a slave to the system
That my press releases and commission meetings are chains around my ankles
Slowly become tighter every time I speak
They say I am a traitor
I say that I am a liberator
They say I’m a sell-out
And I say I am a retail salesman.
Selling freedom of speech on a dime, selling hope for a penny, and those able to find it for themselves get it free.
I sell smiles and handshakes, word of mouth and election polls.
They think it is better to stay on the outside and hope their voice break-in
And I believe that the rat works its best when it is undetected when it skitters in the darkest corners of the night. Spinning circles around its host and its empty tunnels.
Forgetting that most don’t know they have a rat problem until the lights go out and find the power cables chewed through
They forget the greatest spies who lived to tell their tale, were the ones from the inside.
The people who had a seat at the table, and smiled hard and played harder.
That every war had its own version of a traitor, a spy, a rat.
Red, white, and blue won wars on it.
But don’t they know the greatest spies have been on the inside.
This game is a maze, one wrong step and its game over. I am in the room, baby, I have reached the center of this puzzle. and you haven’t even figured out who put you in it.
Kenya Burton Poetry 