Terror

in the u.s. by the u.s. government

I am not in the streets
where our people are terrorized
I am not in the rooms
where the doors are kicked open
where someone’s sacred life
changes or ends in an instant

I am here in my home
morning light across the wall
the familiar comfort
of my chair
my cup of tea
a quiet peace
the world enters anyway.

Arriving in images too painful to see 
but not meant to be unseen
a woman tackled to the pavement
a voice crying for help
the terror in their eyes
the violence against the innocent
all will stay with me
long after I put the phone down.

Ordinary life continues
emails and texts answered
the work I need to do sits on my desk
a car passes, the sound of tires on snow
everything feels surreal and shattered
swinging between terror and normal
dual realities occupying the same moment
life suspended uncomfortably between them.

I watch the savagery through tears-
attention itself is a form of protest
because looking away
would be another kind of violence,
but there is no end in sight
only the accumulating grief
we were never meant to carry
yet somehow must-
terror on repeat
lives lost their stories echo
the details change
but the pattern does not.

I am left with this heavy weight in my chest
of the unshakeable truth
that this is happening on our streets
that this is ongoing
that fear nor pain nor sleepless nights
can absolve us of our duty
to witness and act.

So I move carefully
through this day feeling sick
from illness or grief or likely both
and maybe this is where change begins
not only with outrage and grief,
but with hearts that feel everything 
and eyes that will not look away.