Yesterday's News | Teen Ink

Yesterday's News

February 12, 2018
By Lizziebeth21 BRONZE, Annandale, Virginia
Lizziebeth21 BRONZE, Annandale, Virginia
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Yesterday, I turned off the news

A blackout from the scrolling phrases along the bottom of the pixelated screen
The velvet rope, strung together by torturing words
A barrier between myself and reality
A wall
A gate
  A lock
   A safe
    A dam
Damn!

Anything...anything…
To keep those nasty, horrendous words away from my world.
To block them out from my truth
To chase them away from my reality.

The newscasters never seem to notice the silent words
Creeping across their stage, like a child banished to his bedroom
Yet timidly tiptoeing back down the hall.
Phony smiles, perfect teeth, rosy cheeks, curled hair, to form a halo around their heads
Glowing, illuminated, by artificial, yet godly light
As if their very presence was a gift from god
As if they were an angel sent to bring good tidings
As if nothing was wrong...nothing was ever wrong…
Nothing is wrong with my world

But the words…

The Words!

The silent words underneath them
Pushed under the fashion and the sports
The letters, signs we can see
Signs of warning, danger, disease
Signs that shape our world.
Yet, are never spoken allowed
At least...not by the saints of the news...though they don't need to...
We already know what they mean
We understand what figures and shapes the consonants and vowels will form.
We translate what these familiar symbols will become...

History is our Rosetta Stone

Only history can tell us what comes next
After the words comes history
Our past...as little as we like to acknowledge it
Might be our future
Everyone knows it...for some deep, deep within
A small lonely, desperate voice
Pushing on brains and pulling on heartstrings
So small
So strong
  So just
   So right
Produces a spark
A flame of defiance, illuminating
A fire, a desire for change
To sidestep the trap history as laid out for us...to not just survive, for all to live...to thrive.
To grow stronger
A motivation unparalleled to Hercules against his labors
A need to move mountains with just two bare hands simply because history has never accomplished it before

And then, the words pass

Continuing on, to god knows where
Off the blinding hues of the screen, sucked into a vortex of colorful wires behind the T.V.
Smothering
The flame
And taking the spark along with it
Yet, leaving me behind

So I sit longer...

And then, it is silent
Except for the newscaster's voice which now seems brittle, and much too high
But I am no longer listening. It seems there is nothing left to listen to
So I breathe…

In and out
And In
And out and
In and
Out
Continuously
In
And out
And in and
Out and
Maybe...maybe...maybe
Maybe I wasn’t meant to move mountains with my bare hands
Certainly, if mountains needed to be moved
Someone would have accomplished the feat long ago

A scholar
A scientist
  A magician
   A God

Surely...surely...surely
Surely they would have found a way

So I sit longer

Now I am lost and confused
As new words appear along the red ribbon of truth
Which once seemed like soft velvet, but now seems bloodstained
Though I suspect it was always bloodstained

More and more the words attack my screen
New termol, disasters, horrors
Faster and faster and faster
Swarming my brain
Repeatedly hitting and hitting and hitting
And hitting the outside of my skull
Trying to get inside
To change me
To try to convince me to do the impossible.
But, I do not listen because I know they will pass…
I know there is nothing I can do
That the words will continue on and leave me with nothing but youthful apathy

“Tomorrow!” I cry “I can’t do this today”
“Come back tommorow, tommorow, tommorow!”

So I sit longer

Sometimes the newscasters discuss one of the symbols on the blood red line
But most of the time they don't…
But I hear them
Their silence is deafening
Yet, I sit, stoic, still, unnerved, and unmoved
As the words close in
I suppress a scream
“Tomorrow” I promise “It’ll make sense tomorrow...”
“Someone will fix it...No, I will fix it...
But now right now…
I can’t handle this right now
Turn it off
Turn it off
Turn it off
I said
TURN IT OFF!”

Tonight, I turned off the news
 


The author's comments:

I was inspired by the way humans tend to see suffering in the world, all around us, and simply choose to ignore it. By our ability to see something on a T.V. screen and detach ourselves from the problem. 


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