Fighting Against The Continuously Numbing Cycle
Continuing to go through all my backlog and switching from cute art to a more somber and heavy poem. Wrote this while I was on vacation a while back and a tragedy happened while I was away. It’s about cycle that continues to tire me even now and that only continued even between me writing this and the tragedy I was writing about that happened to hit closer than usual, not too close that I was truly affected but closer than I’d like. Originally posted this in May 2022.
Fighting Against The Continuously Numbing Cycle
By: A.X. Bueno
I stopped knowing what to say months ago but I continue to feel the need to speak out and talk
Almost all of us know this cycle of injustice by now due to the exhausting consistency
A cycle of threats and red flags ignored violence against a community with a handling of it that mocks
Followed by too many talking heads paying lip service but avoiding the true issue with glaring persistency
When a shooter makes it clear that he did this because of others who told him to be afraid of the future for those with the color of his skin
That he should protect himself by killing those trying to “replace them”
He takes lives with his gun and we get to see how much those lives really matter with how well he’s taken in
When so many black people are killed for a fear based “noble crusade” but is really senseless mayhem
Because it’s based on the belief that white people are dying out and they’re who matter most
And when that belief is bolstered by some of those talking heads
Who not only take no accountability but can actually get to keep bolstering and boast
Of course even as I write this there’s probably more shooters preparing to make others dead
Others they were taught to hate by people who off that suffering make their bread
I could give you names if I wanted to but if you care enough to read this who know who they are
Or at least I assume you would as the cycle continues and empathy feels like it’s being bled
Of course the reason I wrote this was the shooter who struck in my state which is nerve-wracking and feels me with sadness and dread
It might not have happened right in my neighborhood but that’s still my proverbial front door
Yet when these tragedies and the reason why they happened are so ingrained into our way of life
It can be hard to muster the energy to care anymore
But of course we have to when anyone can become a victim in ways that feel so much more targeted and worse than before
So ultimately we mourn and try to protect ourselves in the hopes we are missed by the next tragedy that comes to pass
And we also have to sigh and be scared and angry that this massacre most certainly isn’t the last
Wondering how we as a country can even do this anymore