By Daniel Paiz

It feels like every month in 2020 possesses something unexpected but necessary in some capacity. June is no different with what’s happening around Black Lives Matter and updates around COVID-19. This piece is going to hopefully make you dig a bit. Lyrics, like always, are the initial source of inspiration.

Poetry is meant to be cathartic, so strap in.

No Days of Grace

(Echoes of Three Days Grace’s “Animal I Have Become” lyrics faintly bleed out through a worn out speaker)

“Somebody get me through this nightmare,

I can’t control myself…” (music fades to absolute silence)

Addiction is not a laughing matter,

and someone should help,

but when people are judged off of skin pigmentation,

No days of grace will answer or measure up,

Addicted indeed are those waving stars and stripes,

to placating those claiming they devalue life,

Follow the argument if for some reason

this perspective isn’t something you agree with or like.

See if “all lives matter” than it’s a broad paint stroke,

where you’re stating every shade in existence

should be able to go

for a run, to get some candy,

even sleep somewhere in peace,

but clearly that’s something via action

those echoing such a statement disagree.

Because “all lives” mean Black lives,

as they are part of the pallet you approved,

but instead you act like

somebody spiked the Bible study with Witches’ Brew.

How unpalatable is it

to regurgitate hate from 1968

Whether it was April 4th or October 16th,

From Tommie Smith to Kaepernick

52 years later that spangled banner shimmers hate.

I’ll leave the straw man alone,

after all that’s your best friend too,

in practice mode for internet debates,

that in person you’d quickly label another as rude.

Listening is a dead art

when outside of the echo chamber,

bubbles floating all around,

crystalling into snowflake fables,

the kitchen table might not unite

to feed what’s needed to nourish disconnected views,

How egocentric does one have to be,

to be offended by Black people saying they matter too?

Like, are things that bleak, when denied truth,

bifurcation proves US votes are Pencho Milkov in a suit,

when you’re choosing how you want to be treated,

by the C.O. administering servitude.