Maybe I’ve read to many books,
Or maybe I was born unable to turn a blind eye.
But looking out at these issues I can’t fix,
most I can’t even name,
ingrained in my way of living,

…. how can I help? How can i pick up your pieces and set them back in place?

I can’t, all I can do is look on with haunted visions and
cherry picked blossoms.

People use ‘I can’ as if suddenly everything will change once you utter those two words.
That’s not how it works I’m afraid,
I tell empowerment groups and kids alike.

Maybe I’m horrifically pessimistic, calling myself a realist,
And there could be a reason, with what I’ve seen,
All the news we consume,
I couldn’t always ignore
the stories of deeds and people
highlighted in cheery cherry picked blossom lipstick.

Let’s not begin on the manipulation,
I wouldn’t want to bore you
with a million different and consistent stories.

Money donations make me feel important,
does that mean I’m only egotistical if I donate more?
What if I help out, build a park or walk down those crime scene lanes
with a hundred different people, demanding a constitutional right?

When I read, ‘equal protection of the laws’, and turn on my tv,
News station’s bias and political affiliation is not what I asked for.
And then they show me another crime to beget those simple words,
As if they are so complicated to understand by our nation’s leaders in court.

I can’t turn my eyes away, I don’t want too
Not from our history or our future, much less the present.
So, without speaking of these issues, after all, we hardly do that,
And when we do, it is bargained for and silenced, then…
Shall I present an idea?

I’ve not got a masters degree, nor a specialty in this or that, but love isn’t going to save us. Determination’s halfway there. But the humanity of it all always seems to fall away as time goes on.

This is all too much for today,
maybe I'll just...
read a book or write a poem.