-for my kids

You’ve been through active shooter drills
since kindergarten. Heard the president
brag about grabbing women’s genitals,
make fun of disabilities and when our soldiers
are captured war prisoners. Seen whale bellies
full of plastic, so many Black folks killed
on the livestream, boats of refugees gone
down in the Mediterranean. Children stolen
on our own soil and locked in cages.
Malala shot in the head for wanting to go to school.
Standing Rock with tanks rolling in. How I cried
after Pulse and Sandy Hook.

You’ve been to marches, Nazis condemning
your sign, been to Pride and had preachers damning you
for a rainbow. I’ve tried to let you see the truth
in manageable bites. I know these bites bite hard.

I want to say it’s not supposed to be like this.
But humans are as humans do. One will shoot
a man in the gut. Someone else will press their own hand
to the wound. One will walk across a desert for help. Another
will lock her in prison when she arrives. Build it. Tear
it down. Build it back. Blow it up. Sift the rubble
for survivors. Doctor them back to health. Rock their kids
through the night terrors. Send the drones back in just as soon
as they learn how to sleep again.
I want to say it’s not supposed to
be like this, but maybe it is.
We are the horror and the triumph and the horror again.

Remember back to when you were really little?
How I taught you not to hit other people?
That it’s important to be kind, and share, and help?
Yeah. The grown ups still don’t get it.