The Duty of Self

Featured art by Mario Sánchez Nevado

Listen to Live Reading

Listen to Suggested Audio

Electribe 101 “Talking With Myself”

The choice belongs to you
Nobody else
So think it through and do it for yourself
Form opinions of your own volition
Flat refuse to seek permission to be who you always knew you could aspire to be
Ultimately it is down to you to undeniably be you
Only you have right of privacy to finally raise toast to approbation’s noble health and bid farewells adieu

Praise yourself for coming through the slew of blues and home brew truths
Alluding you were soon to be expelled
From any kind of destiny suggested to be less than blessed
Suppression tests to see you overwhelmed
Tune out all the static so emphatically erratic
As it rattles off the rationale for only trusting selves

Rumours grow like tumours once they’re humoured all too soon
Careless whispers blister on the splintered lips of swell
The world we live in can be unforgiving when we give in to the bidding of the villains whose misgivings kiss and tell
Living for the kill
Goodwill is cheapened by the thrill of making cuts to ruts to jut the guts we spill
Just to spare our blushes
There are just enough of us to fall in love with life in time to call the bluff of such cheap thrills

Unique skills peek out beneath weak wills when we reveal the steel to trust the feels our intuition thrusts
The real deal stuff snuffed out by doubt, mistrust and other tough love shouts
Call them out for they disrupt devout
Suddenly, we’re bleeding out and lack the clout to figure out the whereabouts of those we flout aloud

The choice belongs to us
And us alone
We form our own opinions
Can step back
Retract facts unexact
Perhaps postpone attrition
Not be quite so quick to make executive decisions
Unless addressing comatose ambition
Wish upon a well or two and praise yourself for coming through the slew of blues and home brewed truths
Accrued not to expel

Disprove all the rumours just by being you and no one else
For only you will ever be yourself
You and only you have right of privacy to finally raise toast to approbation’s noble health
And remember, caring whispers kiss the lips of swell to tell of tales regaled amidst the lifting mists of e’er prevailing wealth
There is one point to prove
Unto ourselves
The choice belongs to you
Nobody else