A Poem Because Cities Are Burning and I Can’t Sleep

Midnight May 31, 2020
 
If a poem could keep
the world from exploding,
other lives from imploding
I’d never put down my pen.
I’d ink blank pages
until fingers cramped, blistered,
and bled, until the marks
of artistic suffering smeared
the alphabet of good intentions.
 
I’d write until compelled
to stop and look upon
the streaked mess
I’d made of creation.
Forced to cease
my frenetic struggle
for self-expression
I’d rub a tired hand
across my neck
and just breathe in and out
because I can
live in the present moment.
 
I’d see tears of privilege
smear my careful pages
forming corona bursts
that spread like wildfire
consuming poetic constructs.
 
Ink seeping into blood
bleeding into grief that overflows
its banks surging with despair
flooding foundations
that were supposed to protect
our fragility but crumble
under the weight of oppression.
Exposing the rotten materials
upon which we’ve built
systems that promise
to uphold everyone
but never could
support the weight of equality
and that fail all of us now
as illusions of protection
and safety collapse.
 
The walls tumble down
and we are broken, shattered
scattered along the streets
cowering in quarantined homes
victims of an unseen virus,
supremacy, and privilege.
Barely masked vitriol
is such flimsy covering
against what we truly need to face.
 
I should be standing
alongside those destroyed
by the shadow side
we once tried to hide
but are now parading and tweeting.
Our naked underbelly celebrated
our worst selves shined up
our deepest fears inflicted
upon others we dehumanize
in order to keep our motives
unexamined our wounds unhealed.
 
My voice is so easily spoken
my words so easily heard
my views so easily accepted
my pen so easily plied.
But you who’ve been silenced
you who’ve been ignored
you who’ve been shunned--
protest. Riot if you must.
Burn your truth into my skin
and may your cries
haunt me to the grave.