The outside is off limits and a doorstep becomes a dais,
To show frustration and sympathy,
To light a candle, to mourn
To stand with others when we cannot touch them.
The world is in chaos and the doorstep is a sanctuary,
To appreciate and commemorate,
To clap and laud,
Yet people are not paid in applause.
The doorstep is a safe space, but it is not a powerful one.
Isolated, a single tealight in the night,
No change is affected through a clap in the dark.
The doorstep is where the buck stops.
Another candle makes our streets no safer,
As women and flowers are trampled,
Pinned to the ground by the colleagues of a murderer.
A banging pan pays no person’s food bill,
As you judge your neighbours for their lack of civic pride,
Smug that you do your bit,
While you vote for those who have forced nurses to foodbanks.
A doorstep is as far as you go to remember loved ones,
Whose funerals you could not attend,
Whose deathbed you were absent from.
A doorstep where you miss them and ponder
Who is responsible for their death.
Is your doorstep where the buck stops?