Monday, November 14, 2016

I have to write I'm afraid

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of the despair, and disillusionment, and delinquency I'm feeling,
Of my loneliness, and longing, and lassitude.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of the pain, and anger, and rage I'm feeling,
Of the constriction of breath and the tightness in my thighs and feet.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of how I'm going to explain this,
To my daughter, to make her understand how we shot our own faces off, and why.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of how we have now thrown off these 'yokes' of aspiration, deliverance, and freedom,
In the wake of electing a racist, sexist, lying pig to be leader of what will never again be the free world.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of how America deserves this, parading their wretched verisimilitude of greed,
As if it were a virtue worth basing a nationhood on, instead of a multitudinous human failing to be diligently overcome.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of how we now mourn the beautiful artists, the magnificent performers, the seductive purveyors of a thousand grand fictions,
And their glimpses of a heaven that can now never be here on earth.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
Of an America that coveted our dreams, that reflected our hopes, that strove for our emancipation,
And just threw them (and us) all under the bus.

I have to write, I'm afraid,
That I am now afraid,
For millions of fates yet to be determined,
For people as yet in chains,
For millions more in limbo,
For millions still in pain.

I have to write, I'm afraid, that I am afraid now,
For us... and of us.

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