I've been avoiding this for awhile now. Like many of you, I'm still sore from this punch to the gut. I won't lie to you. I'm a natural-born cynic. Be that as it may, I've always willed myself to believe in the American experiment, in the idea that liberty is unalienable, unlimited, and unrestricted. That we can not only live and let live, but will others to succeed. I think we all want to see that dream come true. But this... seeing the nation tear itself apart like this has come perilously close to permanently revoking that possibility for me.
In a word, I'm disillusioned.
We are not just divided anymore.
We're damaged.
I tend to be an incredibly private person about things like this. To be forthcoming about my emotions is rare for me. What I have come to use as a coping mechanism for this over time is poetry. So, in lieu of an intellectual introspection of my concerns, I've decided to write about my feelings in the only way I know how.
The poetic form I chose to use is called the Cento, or patchwork. Each line of a Cento poem is taken from another poem, resulting in an original work composed from an assemblage of other writers' words.
Since election night, I've heard (more times than I care to admit) that caring too much, that feeling too much for this makes me a sore loser, or worse. I know that I'm not alone in that. What many fail to realize is that this outpouring of emotion does not stem from aggravation or spite, but fear. I can't say I have the answer to that, or even the power to properly explain it. This is the best I can do.
Indivisible
I.
The legends that he started in his life
were all struck quiet.
I tore down my thoughts,
inflamed in my ribs like three hoops of thunder through a screw.
II.
"I am your worst nightmare."
We stared, and no speaking, and felt the deep loneness of incomprehension.
My thoughts turn south.
“What more can be taken away?”
III.
Through cotton wilderness
where to be born a female means one cannot win,
strapped into head electrodes,
seeing a cross, and the words “Muslims Go Home.”
You have buried us alive.
IV.
“What happens to a dream deferred?”
Around me is the sound of steepled bells.
They hail me as one living.
I could not stop for death.
The only other sound’s the sweep
of joys seemshot to suffer pain.
“Be tortured, yet resigned.”
V.
The giant trees are bending
There are those who are charmed by it,
the single voice that raises up the dead.
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors”
in a temple of decay.
VI.
From the world of spirits there [descend]
ghost stories to the cradle at night.
Whispered shadows trace our skin.
“Something that… is theirs- no longer ours.”
VII.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
all come to look for America.
Disclaimer: My sole purpose in writing this piece is to express my personal views at this time, and is not intended to present an objective political argument.*
