Refraction

A poem I wrote about ten years ago about the state of the world. (Opinions. Thoughts. Feedback.)

Not enough people look up at the stars at night.

They wear rhinestones on clothes,

glitter on drunken lips,

closing themselves up in dance clubs,

twinkling inebriated eyes,

schmoozing with local stars.

They wear wedding rings resembling nebulas and cosmos,

where they were ripped from the earth

by people with severed arms,

and lost hope.

But don’t they look like beautiful stars?

A revolution unfolds under Middle Eastern stars,

a world cries out,

a tornado shreds apart lives and towns.

They stare at the newspapers front page,

feeling a tinge of guilt.

But it’s their turn in line,

snapping back into their rushed lunch

break of diet cokes and chicken salads

holding empty conversations,

over empty calories,

They will never know what the Middle East feels like,

or what blood and tears feel like,

splattered chaotically upon uprooted streets.

They sleep the night away,

awaiting their morning commute

under the dawn’s early stars,

growing agitated with traffic,

their dreams fading

under the wheels of their car payment.

They cut others off,

as they check their stocks,

ignoring the road

and the ghetto they drive past

where thousands are suffering.

They hurry in and out of coffee shops

where sanitized counters gleam

and stainless steel sparkles.

But still something is missing

as they rush past the person sitting outside,

who at night has no choice but to look at the stars,

sleeping alone in the park.

The have the life of the stars

that play on their plasma screens,

in the houses that stars surely live in,

and their debt piles up and hope fades,

as the neighbors try to fool one another,

by living the better lie.

They buy disposable clothes

at pop-up chain stores,

made by mistreated individuals

in overseas countries.

But they look like the stars they see in magazines,

while the cancer of comparison

eats away at self-esteem and reality.

They punch clocks, and the clock punches

back taking a little bit of them with its monotony.

Time rushes by,

the ocean rises up and swallows lives,

the earth quakes

and in the end,

we all lay in the ground,

forever looking up at the stars.

Author's Note

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