The puritanical grumblings
of conservative mouthpieces parroting
sadistic philosophies from their
situationship with Jesus
are keeping me awake at night.
I am tired
of bland recitations of hallelujah
in response to hate speech.
I wake up to sirens
after midnight. Election season is upon us,
drowning out the meditative serenity of fall.
My anxiety is chronic, I know,
but no hypothetical economy is a fair trade
for human lives.
I can hear an uncle telling me to settle down
the way he’d speak to a horse,
full of confidence and condescension.
The kind of tone you can only find in a man
who found religion on YouTube.
Let’s speak plain: people are dying –
children are dying –
to protect a status quo, a bottom line,
a weapons manufacturing industry,
so that we can keep some old white guys
planted on pretty pedestals.
When I do sleep I have nightmares
of having failed my inner child.
How do you comfort the past?
How do you save the future from itself?
How many hurricanes, how many bombs,
how many school shootings,
how many hate crimes and suicides does it take?
On the TV the talking heads argue
about gas prices and people are dying.
I try to numb myself: I drink,
I take an edible
before bed every night,
I read comic books where the good guys always win,
throw away the Sunday paper,
change the news to cartoons,
and none of it helps.
None of it stops me from knowing.
My teenage self climbs up
through my rib cage and out of my mouth.
She screams
and screams
and screams.