Create Love, Not War. {poetry}
Brussels is burning.
You may say it’s the other side of the world, but Detroit is burning too.
We are all burning.
The fires in the furnaces of our hearts are dying out and our souls are growing cold; nothing to feed them with, just charred bits of broken coals.
Art is dying.
Brushstrokes across the body lost to cries of I don’t know how to paint
When all it takes is a finger dipped in color to create.
I am tired of trying to churn out poetry from the world’s pain.
I do not deem myself enough of a wordsmith to squeeze out any more pretty-sounding vowels from all her continents.
I cannot dispel the waste of youth mocking the dying at their backdoor, getting high off all the wrong uppers to keep them from feeling down.
I cannot turn the radio loud enough to drown
Out the blaring rage upon the road; it wasn’t until last night I remarked upon the marvel of the sun setting prisms upon the clouds. I’m still amazed by spiraled turns and adventures held by exit signs. Yet all that open space, and still no space for all of us.
We are lonely
In a room of all our friends, zombies scrolling through a newsfeed
Hungry
Starving for the lies we tell ourselves we need
But we are grieving
For the death of the children we used to be
And I am afraid for all the babies still about to be
Brussels is still burning
And Paris is still smoldering, sweeping the ashes towards the Seine
And I’m watching the race for the elections ready to toss my ballot aside
Feeling like a small fish in a big pond, a sinner — failing to be absolved
What difference do I make in a pond slicked green with scum?
I am only happy when I create
Wounded, bloodied only by oil stains
Acrylic seeping into muslin stretched taut over a wooden frame
Pain only when the penpoint scratches my heart and its blue margined veins
There is a hole, not sutured, between my vertebrae
Under the clavicle
Encased by the ribs
Because I ripped it out and threw it at him
And I was lucky he was such a good catch
To hold all my creations in the palm of his hands
When I clasp his in mine, it looks like we’re praying
To what I haven’t the faintest idea
But I’m praying our love will create more love
If I were to pray, it’d be for peace, and not war.
If I were to pray
My prayers would be for you
You are loved so much
But never truly happy
Like happiness is some object to be obtained
It’s rather something inside us that starts to grow the more we water the seed
Why can’t you see you are a tree?
Your roots don’t hold you back, they hold you up
Your bark isn’t ugly, it protects soft pine
I will hold tightly to your trunk
And we will clasp our praying hands
And we will pray the cruel world will not cut you down
When your toes touch the soil, do you hear our heartbeats in the ground?
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