A Chapter?
Is this the book you read and loved

until that one chapter that

was horror in print,

inked nightmares,

before the tale returned

to that sweet story

that we all want,

cause we need confirmation

that life is good and

endings are happy and

what we believe is truly

noble and honest and

will survive the

obligatory conflict?

Or is this a series,

tome after tome like the

Encyclopædia Britannica

that lined my childhood case,

but not facts or truth or knowledge,

just jumbled lies, nonsensical theories,

and the nightmare that never ends,

not a lone chapter, not a

conflict that resolves,

not a happy ending?

Some pains don’t end,

some hurts don’t heal,

people die, civilizations disappear,

history not heeded,

lessons not learned,

knowledge not imparted,

we are not invincible

and not all that special.

That line’s been crossed —

the one in the sand or the stone,

across your back or against

your throat, the line that once

separated us from them

and doesn’t anymore,

we’ve crossed to the

side of the doomed

because we weren’t so

blessed after all.

Why should we expect rainbows

when there are concentration camps

and wars and children in cages

and dead dissenters and the helpless

who say I can’t breathe

when we breathe and dance and

pretend everyone does?

Too many died alone in a country

that denied their lives and their deaths,

too many suffered when their suffering

was unnecessary, avoidable,

and controllable,

when truth and justice

waited to be held aloft

while too many litigated,

agitated, and negated

all we once held as self-evident.

A needle won’t stop the bleed

or the contamination

or the damnation.

Sorry, not a chapter,

not a piece but the whole,

someone wrote us into the

story without our consent,

and we can’t stop the ending.

© Dennett 2020
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['Writing Prompt Response', 'Poetry', 'Sky Collection', 'Covid 19', 'America']