"Riot" - 5/28/20

On one of the darkest days in American history
I did not hear from you
And in that silence it was impossible
Not to wonder
Were you in darkness too?

Were you sitting on the edge of your bed
Paralyzed with overwhelm
Unable to put down the phone
Unable to turn off the anti-static
Were your lips ice-blue in the unrelenting brokenness?

Faith has come close so many times to admitting
"I can't do this" but closer many more times
To assuring us "we'll get through this"
Every day gurus endow the world with
Pretty words encouraging love

But oppression's always questioned
What if intention is simply not enough
To quell this kind of kerosene between
Unfathomable and duplicitous distance?
The future whispers seductive secrets

In time's left ear even as it fills insurrection's right
With doubt and now's ears are bleeding
As the atmosphere around it screams aloud
For justice and against pain for illumination
Through the purest gust of wind that doesn't stop

Until movement proclaims satiation
But not so much that tempests flood
Or untethered objects drift away, decimated
The weather in my heart is getting so thick
Some days I see lighthouses but today was light-licked

In such a moment of awe of wondering of worry
Of sadness of indignity's cardiac arrest, armed
Where are hope's loving hands to sift desecration
From piles of madness crumpled siren-cries
Deafen mellifluence every time injustice sets sail

For somewhere far beyond this situation
If I can't reach you what is our destination I'm reaching
To remember better days but remembering's raw
It wants to polish every memory anniversary of
Almost what if maybe but for complicity's cracked cause