LENA ALYAAN

author ~ poet ~ comic artist

 

Distorted Reality

Ordering a burger with a side of fries,
While a starving kid in Gaza dies.
Cheering your team as they win the game,
While a family’s home goes down in flames.
You enjoy a movie about oppressive regimes,
But there’s real-life horror across seas.
You then do your taxes; it’s that time of year,
When you give your money to war financiers.

 

Then you go and rest in your cozy bed,
You open the news and shake your head.
It’s terrible, of course, you don’t deny,
But what can you do so why even try?

You put your phone away and slowly forget.
A short-lived sadness you just felt.
A moment of pity that soon goes away.
Is all that you offer in the course of your day.
Then you fade into sleep and happy dreams,
No nightmares of bombs and children’s screams.

 

It’s a distorted reality that I just can’t shake,
A normalness that’s deceptive and fake.
Nothing is normal, there’s evil in the air,
People are dying and nobody cares.
I get the urge to be radical and bleak,
But the sense of normalness pacifies me.

I remind myself, don’t normalize this.
No business as usual when everything’s amiss.
Stop being happy and stop eating good.
Stop spending money as you normally would.
Spread the truth and fight for what’s just,
Set yourself on fire if you must.

 

Curse the powers that let this unfold,
Curse Israel and the rest of the world.
Curse Arab nations that aren’t stepping in,
And the United Nations for how useless it’s been.

Cursing doesn’t do much, but it rallies us all,
It unites the people under one damning call.
Our strength is in numbers, not money or power.
It’s our numbers that make the bad people cower.

 

Cuz one outraged person is only a pest,
A crazy soul that’s disturbed and possessed,
But turn one into many, that’s our solution.
Cuz many outraged people, that’s a revolution.