The PhatBoy1 | Page 9

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