We sit,
like lumps on a log.
Never changing,
forever solid, pleased with this routine
we call life.

Trivial situations we are faced with;
We get nerves on a test, we have family fights.
And that
is enough for us.
Why should we deal with other
problems when we have our own?

We wait.
Until we are in their situation.
Until it affects us.
We suffer a change,
enough for us to go into turmoil.
Change, I know,
is bad.

Airplanes crash through our way
of living. Sirens blare.
Rubble and debris bury those we love,
we feel that sickening bile in our stomach
telling us to DO SOMETHING.
Bombs explode right at the glowing finish line,
making our ear drums ring
hours after,
as a reminder of the impact it left.

Bullets fly through the heads
of our beloved presidents.
Wives covered in tears and invisible wounds,
hold their murdered husbands.
Is that not enough?
Enough to open our eyes,
keep them open?

Every morning children
half foreign to us, weep.
Weep, for a better life, where they aren’t robbed
of their family.

Meanwhile we eat breakfast
with ours.
Our parents scan the newspaper
while we eat our cereal,
stumbling upon a tragedy foreign to us,
we think: “How horrible…”
Yet…Why?
Why do we sit in our rooms,
thinking about tomorrow,
when those in danger
might not get a tomorrow?
Why do we live peacefully
while people
suffer around us?

Is that not how we survive?
Grieve and recover,
distant from the ashes.
Is this our strategy to live?
Safety for ourselves
is all that matters.

Realization is necessary.
Turn the tables,
risk our own
safety,
protect the
unprotected.