Accountability

[Xom]

Accountability is like that medicine we all refused to take as kids
Our parents tried to burden us with it
But we said "fuck this"
Why should we own up?
When the officers who kill innocent people
Never get anything other than
A pat on the back from the cold hand that is regression
This is the new Great Depression
Except we all have cameras
And leave our brethren to suffer
Is there no other life to live?
I don't want my kids turning on the news and seeing someone who looks like them senselessly murdered
If only those news cameras weren't so hung up on their numbers
We'd probably see some truth and change
Instead of a rearranged perception of how we view one another
But you know,
Go ahead and get hung up on the latest celebrity blunder
It's not as if any of this is happening to you

[RhymeLovingWriter]

I've been trying intentionally to look for the good - and avoid some of the bloviating as part of my news accountabliity - and trying to spread the positive to others when I come across that too. Nice write Xom - don't lose hope.

[rhymetime]

While I found this entire write moving and incredible the last line hit me very hard. You are so very right- it is not happening to me. I wrote the poem below with that very feeling in mind. Questioning my right to perhaps pretend to feel your pain to justify myself and allow me to feel righteous.



Why do we weep?
This is not our pain.
This loss is yours.
Do we cheapen your suffering
with our tears?

Why do we weep?
We don't know you.
We cannot feel your pain,
cannot heal your wounds
With our tears.

Why do we weep?
We have no permission
to seek personal comfort
by intruding upon your sadness
with our tears.

Why do we weep?
Because we dwell among the enlightened
in a special heaven
seeking to free the ignorant
with our holy tears?

Why do we weep?
Are we not supposed to?
Is it not our duty
To anoint you
with our holy tears?

How dare we weep,
seeping tears of pretense
that will dry upon
unseen faces.

[rhymetime]

May I add - I would do more. I just don't know what more looks like.

[MHenry]

To do something meaningful, it may be that one must be willing to sacrifice everything. Perhaps, that is why it is hard to recruit those who are not among the oppressed, or even to organize those who are so oppressed in sufficient numbers.