There is a tragic epidemic spreading across the United States. I'm not quite sure where it began or how the infection started, but it appears to be growing. It is characterized by intense violence directed at your fellow man.
The atrocious events that took place a week ago in Newtown, CT have brought to the fore issues that have been teeming at the heart of this outbreak for quite some time. The brutality exhibited is tied into other circumstances surrounding American culture today. Why, with so much technology, are we so alienated from one another? Why do we choose to communicate through a screen rather than face to face? Bullying is nothing new, but when it is exhibited on the internet, it becomes property of the world, leading to an all new breed of anxiety. Suicide runs rampant. The pathways in place to keep us connected have drawn us apart. An older gentleman told me he used to hitchhike everywhere in the 1970's, but now he wouldn't dare set foot in a stranger's car. What the hell happened to us?
The politics in place on the television and on our radios only mask the true issues at hand. The way in which media networks have reported on recent events attests to our addiction to entertainment. We are becoming crueler and further alienated from one another. We are surviving off of stigma, force fed dramatized reality, being lobotomized by primetime televised genocide, and it is corrupting our genes.
We must, together, persevere to reverse this growing calamity. No amount of diplomatic bickering and institutionalized rights can alleviate the American people of responsibility. We must collectively embrace our identities as human, as American, and work together to save each other, from each other, from ourselves. There is a civil war occurring in our hearts and it is spilling out into the streets. The only way we can win this war is through love - Love for ourselves and our fellow human beings.
The atrocious events that took place a week ago in Newtown, CT have brought to the fore issues that have been teeming at the heart of this outbreak for quite some time. The brutality exhibited is tied into other circumstances surrounding American culture today. Why, with so much technology, are we so alienated from one another? Why do we choose to communicate through a screen rather than face to face? Bullying is nothing new, but when it is exhibited on the internet, it becomes property of the world, leading to an all new breed of anxiety. Suicide runs rampant. The pathways in place to keep us connected have drawn us apart. An older gentleman told me he used to hitchhike everywhere in the 1970's, but now he wouldn't dare set foot in a stranger's car. What the hell happened to us?
The politics in place on the television and on our radios only mask the true issues at hand. The way in which media networks have reported on recent events attests to our addiction to entertainment. We are becoming crueler and further alienated from one another. We are surviving off of stigma, force fed dramatized reality, being lobotomized by primetime televised genocide, and it is corrupting our genes.
We must, together, persevere to reverse this growing calamity. No amount of diplomatic bickering and institutionalized rights can alleviate the American people of responsibility. We must collectively embrace our identities as human, as American, and work together to save each other, from each other, from ourselves. There is a civil war occurring in our hearts and it is spilling out into the streets. The only way we can win this war is through love - Love for ourselves and our fellow human beings.
Tête-à-tête:
A Reflection on School Shootings in Two Parts
I.
There
are few things that I hold unjustifiable.
Few acts
persist with purity
As
inarguably heinous
As the
senseless murder
Of the
innocent…
The
helpless and
The
defenseless
In
public places.
A mall,
A movie
theatre,
A church,
But none
more despicable
Than a
school.
There is
nothing more tragic
Than
when utmost ignorance
Conquers
a safe haven of education,
As if
chains had suddenly conquered their keys.
The only
time books and bullets should share the same space
Is in a
social studies book;
The only
time a child should have to smell gunpowder
Is on
the Fourth of July.
No one
should have their innocence
Ripped
away from them;
No one
should have to die
In a
classroom.
I
sympathize with the mentally ill,
The
delusional,
The misinformed,
But I
cannot sympathize
With
those that deliberately take the lives of students
In a
violent act of self-aggrandizement.
I cannot
pool my pity
For this
monstrosity;
For the
purity of evil it distils.
The
thought processes required
To
compel a human being
To
massacre children and young adults
Is an
infectious adulteration
That
strikes at the crux of a person’s humanity,
Transmutating
them into something
Far more
vile,
More
disgusting than I think any one of us is capable of conceiving.
But
anger…
And vengeance,
And
hatred
Are not
the answer.
This is
not about gun control
Or
mental health issues,
This is
about the worth of the human character.
This is
about the need to act,
To quell
the spread
Of this
infectious disease.
To save
the lives of the innocent
We must
save the lives of those who seek to kill them.
We must
stop the beasts
Before
they feed.
Realize
that
The
shooter was innocent too once.
We must
learn to support each other,
Through
love and acceptance.
We must
learn to read the signs of danger
And to
act on them,
To save
the perpetrators from themselves.
They
will thank you…
We can
no longer be afraid to help one another,
To fear
the stigma,
The
backlash.
It is a
chore that must be undertaken by each and every one of us,
To winnow
out the demons that possess our fellow man.
Build a
gun that shoots bullets of compassion…
And we
can blow away this mess.
II.
I am
so sorry
For what
has happened here…
So sorry
For what
your fellow man has done.
The love
that binds you
To the
loved ones you have lost
Binds us
all together
In the
wake of this tragedy.
The
memory of their beauty,
The
grace with which they have touched our lives,
Will no
less persist
In my
mind
And
heart
Than in
yours.
Let us,
Together
In our
collective sorrow,
Reflect
on them
With the
confidence
That
their death
Will
ensure the world is made
A better
place.
I am so
sorry
For your
loss…
For my
loss…
For our
loss,
For the
loss to humanity.
I am so…
So sorry
That my
poem
Cannot
bring them back.
This poem is dedicated to the memory of all those who have lost or given their lives as a result of a mass shooting. My love and my words go out to the families of those lost and anyone else who is connected to or has been affected by a public shooting.
God Bless America
UNDATE
A recording of this poem can now be found on the ReverbNation profile. Check it out and share it with your friends!
UNDATE
A recording of this poem can now be found on the ReverbNation profile. Check it out and share it with your friends!
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