February Reflections (February 27, 2020)

Wish we didn't need

A month for Black History

Or the LGBTQ+ community.

Observing

Throughout the year

Sober vigil days

Against the horrors

Committed against humanity:

January 27th

Holocaust Remembrance Day.

November 20th

Day of Transgender Remembrance.

Remembering/honouring

Those people killed/tortured

For being different.

Except we've forgotten

Human rights struggle

Never ends.

Segregating

Arbitrary based reasons

Defining one's value

By race religion sexual

Or gender orientation.

In demonizing people 

Justifying barbaric inhumane

Acts of hate

Through crimes of power.

I say this

Having personally experienced

How hate and intolerance

Scars one's soul.

To the point

One’s fight for life

Becomes a race

To the death.

Using self-harming

And self-medicating

As a means

To numb the pain.

Your soul dies

With each day lived

Until suicide appears

The only solution.

Whether 

By direct means

Like an O/D.

Or having someone else

Pulling the trigger

On your life.

Something

I have endured

For the past 45 years

Of my life.

As my tears fall

Proof of my witnessing

Those who have suffered.

Hoping

Next year

The pain will end.

Therisa © 2020  

Claiming My Soul (October 27, 2018)

Times

Find myself

Emotionally/mentally paralyzed

Blame game playing.

Moves/things

Should've done differently

Mentally flailing my soul

Dark bloody rivulets

Mars my soulscape.

Each rivulet

Different “what if”

Or “should've done this”

Scenario unfolding.

Guilty conscience byproduct

Indelible inked numbers

Tattooed on soul.

Should've stopped

Bullying and abuse.

Poisonous game/trap

Inviting self-pity

Corroding soul's foundation.

Spiralling downwards

Cruelest darkness

Trapping one's soul.

Lashing out

Violence with violence

Admitting victory

Hate filled people.

This isn't

Who I am

As a person

Fought hard against.

Therisa © 2018

Author's note: As finishing this poem, I saw on CBC.ca, the shocking news about Pittsburgh’s Synagogue murders, this morning. I won't pretend to know, what motivates such a hate crime. To the families of all victims, I offer my condolences, in this time of sorrow.

Sadly, placing armed guards around places of worship, won't solve this anger/intolerance that some people have to others, who are different. As a Canadian looking in, outside the United States, I don't see this happening any time soon. Where love and compassion guide people’s hearts, instead of hatred and violence.

Ripples, From Across The Pond (June 6, 2017)

A pinprick

Against my skin

Releasing 

A red teardrop

Into a vast ocean

Of sorrow.

Washing over me

Like a storm surged tide

Eroding the shorelines

Of my soulscape

With each wave.

Spiralling downwards

Into an endless maelstrom

Of darkness and sadness

That threatens

To overwhelm me

In its vortex.

Struggling 

In my fight

To break through 

This plastic surface

Of discarded bottles

And other things.

Entangling my limbs

In their ever growing web

Of entrapment

Like a finely spun

Net of hate.

My body

Washed ashore

Like a beached whale

Or dolphin.

Too tired 

To continue

In this fight

For life.

As my lifeforce

Bleeds out

Screaming:

"Murderers!"

To no avail.

Therisa © 2017

Author's note: When someone uses terror, as a weapon, we all lose a part of our soul, to these acts of hate. Never, to regain that lost innocence, where love and compassion live, within us. Empowering those, who will hate to fight against hate, as a weapon, like President Trump, proposes, with his travel bans, against select Moslem nations. Especially, after the latest attacks, in England. Totally ignoring the fact, most acts of terror, are committed by native-born citizens.

In A Trump World (November 11, 2016)

Judgment Day

Has come

And gone

For the United States.

Slowly

Reality is

Sinking in

For the world.

As reaction

To Trump's election

Spreads forth

At light speed.

Leaving 

Many people

Nervous.

Echoes

Of election promises

Reverberate down

Empty corridors.

Angry

Hate-filled words

Leaves it mark

On a scared people.

Seeing enemies

In every corner

Of the world.

As they walk

Down this path

Their hearts filled

With despair 

And rage.

Where fiction

Becomes reality.

Without 

A sober second thought

Or logic

To the arguments.

Marking life

For the next 4 years

On this planet.

Therisa © 2016