Death Penalty

We are a strange people
a people who prepare a shock 
for a man who killed another.
But aren't we just stumbling with two left feet back to square one 
when we kill someone who killed? 
And if he were to have a heart attack
the day before his death date, 
we would scream at the doctors,
"Do all that you can to save him!"  
just so he can live for another twenty-four hours 
so then we can take that sorry-son-of-a-bitch's life
Naked. Strapped into a chair. With a sponge dripping down his face wet. Helmet bolted in. Black sheet shrouding his face. 
Just so we can see his body suffer and shake 
And we will plaster on the billboards "fry bastard, fry"
As if this was ever deemed okay 
And allowing this murder, let alone the circus spectacle made out of it 
Is saying that this killing is deserved and therefore humane 
suggesting that killing is natural and human 
since the word human is what makes up the word humane
So we are truly no more than a hypocrite chanting and circling about a bonfire of bodies burning,
screaming with fickle souls and fickle signs raised
"Don't kill. Don't kill." 
Like parading a lie,
as we toss more searing flesh and howling souls in 
Yet still claiming all the way, 
that we don't play God when we choose who gets to die. 

-anna sluder

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