First thing you see on the evening news
Mama cries in a sea of camera crews
She pleas for justice but we just stop and stare.
We could do so much better if we tried to care.
Mama's back to work after a week to grieve.
She can't help but wear her broken heart on her sleeve.
She breaks down and says "I need more time."
Boss says "sorry. There's the unemployment line."
We don't need to change the world.
We just need to change our minds.
We'll see things in a different light
when we pull back the curtains and blinds.
If we remember how to listen to what people say,
Maybe we can find our way back to better days

For every response left unread.
For every thought trapped in my head.
For the way you make me feel.
Decrypt if it's fake or if it's real.

It's hard to explain a feeling you don't quite know yourself.

Understanding your own mind can be tricky sometimes.

We don't quite know each other yet, despite that fact.

I still feel comfortable to talk to you.

 it feels like we have already had a wonderful first date, a romantic second, and our third wasn't the best but we are both don't care because we are spending it together.

 It makes me nervous, not knowing if you imagine the same thing.

That's why I panic when I talk to you, not knowing if the thing I just said was good enough.

so I say something new before you can type back, and believing that isn't good enough so I repeat the cycle.

Becoming stuck in a whirlpool of my own anxiety and overthinking, just because I don't want to miss my chance at that bad third date.

I don't want to miss the chance to stare at you, on a night not going as planned, but still being able to smile when I look at you.

I'm sorry I'm not good at talking, but I promise you would enjoy my rambling and awkwardness if you gave it a shot.

Mending
by Michael R. Burch

I am besieged with kindnesses;
sometimes I laugh,
delighted for a moment,
then resume
the more seemly occupation of my craft.

I do not taste the candies;
the perfume
of roses is uplifted
in a draft
that vanishes into the ceiling’s fans

that spin like old propellers
till the room
is full of ghostly bits of yarn ...
My task
is not to knit,

but not to end too soon.

This is a poem for the survivors of 9–11 whose families lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks. Keywords: 911, survivors, victims, first, responders, passengers, firemen, police, heroes, terrorist, attacks, World Trade Center, Flight 93, Pentagon, White House