I’ve been walking
five or ten
steps out of sync
with all of them;

Just behind
these troubling times
and out of line
I hoped to find
humanity,

observing the disturbing
acts of people hurting
other people,
just to get through to
the good hidden
in plain view.

Light sparklets
spitting from
the light sockets
where poetry
and golden dreams
illuminate
what really makes us great.

But today
hateful claims have cleaved
the heart that longed to be
reprieved from this disease
that greed has infected us with.

My heart longs to be freed
from the sentence we all serve
in our mental penitentiaries,
these imaginary prisons
society has constructed
to keep our good intentions
obstructed.

I’ve been trying to see
all of the human beauty,
handshakes, and hugs,
heartfelt words exchanged because
love and compassion
have become
an instinct
not a well-thought-out reaction.

I don’t think
I can say for sure
if this is truth
or a fiction I use to obscure
how much it hurts
to preach love
and not be heard,
to know the cure
and offer it freely
while people swallow
the very poison
in which they wallow.

So, I might need
a vacation from humanity,
but I wanted to check-in
on all of you
in my poorly written
verses of gentle affections.