the world burns
wild
chaotic
flames licking
at my heels
melts amber
encasing me
drop by
precious drop
preferred armor
for fragile sanity
beginning to blur
bubble
fail
primal scream
growing deep
in my gut
barely suppressed
I teeter
one presidential tweet
one revisionist headline
one bigoted Facebook post
away from bursting
supernova
simultaneously
struck by irony
of how protected
how privileged
this life of mine
really is
wearing accident-of- birth
white
female
middle-class skin
with equal parts
grief
shame
self-hatred
relief
I look out
my suburban window
watching mute
while
the world burns. . .
© 2020 Christine Elizabeth Ray – All Rights Reserved
Brave & Reckless 
Perfectly said in a time when words just seem to fail
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So many of us feel what your poem so eloquently says. It is heartbreaking to witness the tragic events and rage inducing as well.
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In a town so white and so far from the fires and chants that a Black face on Main Street cannot go unnoticed, the smell of smoke and rage and hate comes through the newspapers, the TV, the Internet, the radio. Still, a nose awake cannot miss it, even among the tourist throng.
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Christine Ray smells smoke.
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