Blanket Fort
I woke up today
Looked at the news while still blurry-eyed
And cried. Again.
Pulled the covers up and retreated into my blanket fort.
I spent yesterday dealing with my sorrow
And my anger and my frustration with our so-called leaders
Who spout platitudes but do NOTHING
To stem the tide of ignorance and hatred and violence.
Who consider lobbyists’ money
More important than lives.
Who consider some people’s lives
More important than others.
Who deliberately and with malice aforethought
Spread hatred and lies
Spread racism and otherism and speak of infestations and vermin
Because to them we are not all equal.
Who encourage violence as an answer
And make it oh so easy to procure weapons
Created for war
To carry openly on our streets.
Who consistently undermine any attempts
To make our streets, schools, public buildings,
Places of worship, places of relaxation, places of everyday living
Safer.
Their reasons started in the shadows
But are becoming clearer.
They want us to be scared.
They want us to be terrified.
They want us to voluntarily give up.
To give up our expectations of peace
To give up our rights
For the illusion of a safer life.
To give up our right to peacefully assemble
To live without daily fear
To love our neighbors as ourselves
To be tolerant of everything except intolerance.
To make crying in sorrow every day NORMAL
Because yet another horrific, violent, hate crime
Has been perpetrated
Without a unified outcry of condemnation.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL
It is not normal
It is NOT normal
It can never be normal.
So I hid in my blanket fort this morning
Gathering my strength to deal with my sorrow
And my anger and my frustration with our so-called leaders
Who spout platitudes but do NOTHING
To stem the tide of ignorance and hatred and violence.
Because I will not let them win.
I cannot let them win.
And I will fight in any way I can
With words, with actions, with protests, with votes.
Until the outcry of condemnation
For any level of hate crimes
Causes actual changes
To our leaders, to our laws, to our neighborhoods.
My determination is strong.
But sometimes
I have to retreat to my blanket fort
To make it through another day.
