The television static leaks in my room
A mess of black and white pinpricks
Pricking my skin, and the news fades in
Another war claiming lives, chemical agents
Breathed in by innocent families caught up in it
A family’s child has gone missing,
The neighbor and friend to blame,
And it’s easy to think that this is all that happens
That there are only bad people
Bad things, and I know,
As hard as it may seem
Staring at that television screen
That good people still exist,
But they are not mythic, not yet
They march on their city streets,
Demanding medicine for the sick and
Food for the hungry, justice for the fallen
Someone told me the world is nothing
A trip to Hell, a basket in the hands of
the tainted and confused
A generation of villains with their guns out
But believe me, this isn’t all there is
Hope
A poem by Michelle Norsworthy