Wake Up
Poem by Lailona Holloway
I’m sorry… I’m sorry this is happening to you. I am sorry this is happening to me. What can we even do at this point but cry and shake until something, someone out THERE changes? I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which would you want first? Actually don’t worry. I’ll deliver them in the same breath for you.
YOU hold the power to change everything.
If a singular person could end 50 lives in one go, could not one person save 50 lives just the same.
We have been giving too much of our power to outside sources. And that’s the way they like it. They want you to feel like you have to give all of your energy
to working
to gossiping
to scrolling
to dividing
Ourselves from anyone that is remotely different from us.
This is all a distraction you see
That way I can kill you and you can kill me
While they keep their pristine white gloves clean
Don’t you see?
It’s us against them
But instead its “we the people” against “we the people”
I have spent most of my life feeling like I didn’t belong
I felt alone in this thought
Alone with this suffocating thought that everyone else had a place but me
But I have come to the bitter realization that most of us don’t have a place
We’ve all been frantically searching for it
To maybe fill the bottomless hole in our hearts with something other than slop
Dragging our feet behind us, not realizing that we have all placed ducts into our hearts to temporarily stop our hearts from getting clogged with abysmal crude oil.
Phew what a relief that we can rid ourselves from this
Yep, just leave it on the sidewalk
Someone else will take care of it
Yeah no really, I think the 5 year old girl walking behind you has a mop bucket and rags
Hopefully she doesn’t slip
Look in the mirror.
Go ahead, do it.
I dare you
Do you like what you see?
Take a moment
Take it all in
Every blemish
Every wrinkle
The dark circles
Your hair
Your body
You
Can you take it?
Most of us can’t so we look away
Ready to get our fix by mean mugging our next victim
MMM
It feels great to make someone that already feels like shit,
Feel even shittier
Do you take the time to ask why you do certain things?
Why you feel certain things?
This is not to blame any one specific person
It’s to tell YOU to not blame one specific person
There’s always
More history
More knowledge
More understanding
If you choose not to know,
Then you won’t
