QUARANTINE LIFE: POETRY PROMPT--THE QUESTION

THE QUESTION 

Did you hear the question?

Such an easy one to field

One doesn’t have to be here long

The answer’s not concealed

The volumes that exist, abound

Stark testimonies, too

But when one seeks so desperately 

To pander to the bigotry

That gifts to some, supremacy

What else is one to do?

Did you see the disconnect 

The panic on that face?

The heart was racing frantically 

While reason lost its place

The lie that one has told oneself

In order to fit in

Still won’t secure a place with those

Who know the origin

Did you hear the stumbling

And the fumbling meant to steer

The lie back to its prominence 

And make truth disappear?

One can’t admit aloud what one knows

But proceeds to fight.

To publicly acknowledge what

One knows is wrong or right

Would be the end of favor

Where one desperately hopes to be

And yet, the lie one peddles

Threatens one’s own liberty

Did you ever see denial so personified?

One couldn’t be more pitiful

If one sincerely tried

Who is it that one aims to please

With one’s outrageous words?

Even those who, too, deceive 

Know one’s speech is absurd 

It’s funny how experience

So colors what one sees

Romanticizes violence

And rewrites History

Perhaps it’s just too painful

To merely speak the truth

A truth that lives—

And should greatly impact one’s point of view

Just what would be the consequence

If one would simply say

What everyone knows to be so

Why always the delay;

The stubborn, staunch refusal to

Let go of guilt and shame

Acknowledge each atrocity

And call them out by name?

Did you see the struggle?

It’s a shame to fight oneself

The heart will never let the face

Dictate what’s truly felt 

So one must lie.

I don’t know why one makes oneself a fool

Only to do “their” dirty work

And be a useful tool

Until one’s usefulness runs out

And one must face oneself

And search for all the truths

One hastily put on a shelf

As if truth can be hidden

And is ever want of light

But, now it blinds; it’s glare, too much

Because one chose the night—

Cozied up with darkness 

Could it be one hates oneself?

Has one exchanged even one’s name

For want of something else?

Did you see the misery?

One knows it won’t be long

Before the thing that one supports

Makes one sing a new song

A song full of apologies

For one’s own ignorance

A song explaining why one was so mired in nonsense

A song seeking forgiveness 

And a wee chance to repair

The gross misinformation 

And division everywhere 

Did you hear the question?

How surely would you say

That racist ideologies

Have always been at play?

How you answer the question 

Also serves to show

Whether you’ve ever cracked a book

Opened your eyes to take a look

It seems so many just forsook

The truth, and sold their souls

One thing is for sure

If one’s to lead you, one must know

Who you are, where you’ve been

And the right way to go

One misinformed— so confused

Willfully blind, or dense

One utterly dishonest, careless

Void of common sense

One who lies, and so derides

Your lived experience 

No empathy, no sympathy,

Lacking intelligence 

Will never know the answers

Why? 

There’s no integrity

In one who pans your story; 

Slanders your humanity

Now, I ask 

How could such a one

Ever represent me?

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