I wake up everyday to the sight of the New Normal
Open my ears to the sounds of the news
A black man killed before he could breathe
A child bombed before he could eat
And I think
What is normal?
What is rest?
What is hope?

Normalcy doesn’t sound normal these days
Rest doesn’t sound restful these days
Hope doesn’t sound hopeful these days
And I wish they did anyway

I wish writing, making art, cooking,
playing games, short naps, or social media
Were enough to make us forget about
Restless civilizations
These days
Heartless politicians
These days
Senseless discrimination
These days
The failures of the system
These days

I sit with my heart on my hand
Comprehending nothing at all
These days
While chaos all around us ensues
These days
And months seem to go by as quickly as they can
Yet nothing seems to change
Racism is still racism
War is still war
Hate is still hate
These days

And yet we’ve just realized
These days
How much we valued other days
And there’s no longer any returning to
Those days
Cause if it took us a pandemic to realize
How much we’ve failed those who needed us the most
On days
We’ve looked past reality
Just to see what we wanted to see
And believe what we wanted to believe in
That we chose right
That we’d never be able to fear going out
Since we’ve kept ourselves inside our social bubbles
That kept us from seeing
That everyone else had always been suffering
Before these days
I’d rather have
These days

So what is normalcy?
What is rest?
What is hope
To those who couldn’t afford to have those in the first place?

But I’d like to think that we haven’t completely forgotten
Those days
I’d like to think there will be better days
Where we’ll finally be able to settle down all our differences
That we won’t differentiate black from white
That we’ll finally know wrong from right
And we’ll see that days
Are not just days
But everyday struggles for many to live
In a world that hates living so much

So don't just wish these days
Instead help these days
So that others may be able to live their days too
And not just you
Today.