Police killings,
Guns in classrooms,
Black lives matter,
Gendered bathrooms.
Terrorism, marriage law,
Protests, riots,
Presidential election,
American crisis.

Red, white and blue
We’re kneeling, burning.
Children watching,
Hearing, learning.

Moving backward
But seeking change,
Demanding love
But spreading hate.
Tearing down,
Demanding growth,
Impossible
To have both.

We scream so we’re heard
But do we seek change,
Or do we seek volume?
Is it passion or rage?

There's quite a difference
Between taking a stand
And demanding peace
With knives in our hands.

We are the power,
And we are the knowledge.

But we are the battle,
And we are the challenge.

They pulled a *****
With Trump's *******...
I mean Election.

i don’t know,
but there just aren’t any words for this, are there?

days later
and i still scramble for the right things to say,
as if any poetry could make this easier, more okay.
(it doesn’t work. i give up soon enough.)
(there is no poetry for this.)

i want to let time take my hand,
wash away the horror of what america has done;
i let angry music blare loud in my ears before i realize—

no. this is not something i can drown out.
this was not anything time would heal.
this was never something we could have just ignored, see?

you cannot let a sickness grow
call it healing while it festers.
you cannot watch a burning building
and think the fire will put itself out.
you must not leave a infected wound out and open
and just wait for the blood to stop on its own.

(it’s already infected. it hurts enough already.)
(it will scar.)

no. you have to act. you have to say:
this is not normal.
we cannot live with smoke around us,
with open wounds—
we cannot live if we are dying.

you cannot succumb. you cannot think of dying yet.
you have to say: i am alive. i will not die.
not while i am needed,
not while i can help.

take a breath. let the image sink before you.
stare at it, this open wound;
but then you must fight the sickness.

Time is swaying
and broken,
white and blue static,
like a TV set
trapped and muted
on a damaged channel
that I cant change.
This remote needs batteries,
but at least this looks better
than Fox News.

I write this from a library under the watchful gaze of Voltaire,
Having read that the future of Earth's water is being debated in Morocco.

Isn't there a Utilitarian part of us all that strives to save our home,
And rejects the notion that we must **** where we eat to make progress?

Gambling becomes dangerous when you begin to stake declining resources.

There is no turning back, and there is little optimism from Millennials who shall inherit the rotting infrastructure.

Nothing is dramatic or blown out of proportion when the President can't acknowledge that there's something seriously wrong with a giant hole in the ozone.

Herr Trump, where is the ice going?
Would you sell the penguins for profit?

Tell the Polish Brigade that legal workers will restore this country's ideal greatness.

Tell them sincerely.

Reagan spouted that it was Morning in America, and I imagine the Trumpites feel the same.

What is morning, anyway, when you can't see the sun for the smog?

i am not okay because you are not okay.

you hold my heart, everyone one of you,
and it has always been this way.

i stand strong with the belief in hope,
i carry an open mind through the gray.

one day our smiles will stay,
but until the peace of that day,

my heart, alongside yours too, cries.
this is all that i can say.

no more.