Watch the World Burn // Melting Wax (2 poems)
Two poems published by Collective Unrest
August 22, 2018
When the world around you
is burning,
how do you strike a match
to create your own flame?
How do you burn bright
amidst the coal-black
soot that has come to
cover us all like Vesuvius
raining down on those in Pompeii?
We now lie petrified,
afraid to move,
afraid to speak,
afraid.
Afraid of everything
we worked for and fought
against has come to rise again
and we fear for
the fate of our humanity.
Yet we refuse to fade
or let our flames extinguish-
they burn bright
amidst the hatred,
shedding light on all that still
must be changed.
As women rush to closets with
twisted wire necks of
coathangers like claws
clutched in hand;
as babies scream
for parents at the border,
ripped from solid security
of those who birthed them;
as men stand tall and women shrink;
colors begin to morph in meaning...
What will become of your flame?
When cages are meant for
people and locks
are kept without keys, who
do you answer to?
Who is the gatekeeper?
Where will you be
when the destruction of
basic human nature
is complete
and we fall back
in time to a dark place
we said "never again" but
it's far too similar for comfort
and the terror is
a national hum,
a vibration linking us,
palatable.
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