There are too many distractions,
too many actions to prevent
seeing other men, woman,
and children as humans.
It’s too easy to go a whole day
avoiding seeing people in pain.
It’s too easy to let politicians
and powerful corporate interest
rewire your tired and poorly fed brain,
to let weak rhetoric whip up and inflame,
making normal people act insane.
All the while letting strangers
suffer and die without questioning why.
But so much has been bothering me,
like how is it so easy for you to behave cruelly?
I want you to not be numb,
to see humanity in everyone.
Do not let the digital distance
keep you from the severity
of this instance,
or get doped up with
the self-satisfaction
of shared positions
created by weak religions
or the illusion of a binary system
that relies on one source of corruption
feeding both parties of politicians.
I need you to be freed from greed,
to look and really see other human beings,
to read the stories written in the skin
of generations after generations
of nations and nations
of human kin.
To see each bullet punctured body
as a failure,
each bombed burnt body
as a failure
each person murdered by the authorities
as a failure,
each time we chose profits
over the wellbeing of the world
as a failure.
I want you to see the dying
of those many miles apart
who are trying to survive
and not look away.
I want you to know
that if we are truly
kind and moral people
who want to be treated fairly
then we can’t treat death as casually,
as social media and daytime trash tv.