I’ve had many notebooks

This is about one of them

The cover was black

It wasn’t for school

I filled each page

Front and back

And by the middle of ninth grade

The notebook was completely full

Of the same sentence

Over and over and over again

“I will not eat”

I wonder who you are, really.

I wonder what you know.

Does it live inside you too?

How far have you been able to grow?

I want to know if you’re happy.

Even though I don’t know you at all.

Sometimes I almost >need< to know you’re okay.

Because, I too, took the same fall.

I haven’t looked to find you.

I hope you survived the attack.

Curiosity killed the cat they say,

but satisfaction brought it back.

So maybe one day I will know,

that you’re happy in the sun.

Maybe one day I’ll know,

that we have really won.

(Draft 2)

I am tired of wondering when they’re going to kill us

And I am incredibly grateful every day they don’t

I was proud to be an American

back when I thought we were free.

I really wont forget the men who died,

Who tried to fight for me.

I’ll still proudly stand up, next to them,

And what they thought we had.

There’s still no doubt I love this land,

I love this stolen land.

From the lakes of Minnesota,

To the hills of Tennessee,

There is fear in most American hearts

from sea to shining sea.

From Detroit down to Houston,

And New York to LA,

There is ICE around every corner

and a new nazi display.

Reincarnation of actual evil after it’s suspected departure in 1945.

“Smart” Cell phones.

That’s why the anxiety.

The edges are peeling up,

The adhesive has dried,

What lies underneath is showing.

The bodies are talking,

The money’s not holding,

There is no more unknowing.

The papers are out,

The names are all listed,

The record of monsters keeps growing.

The kids aren’t alright,

The hole just gets deeper,

All under the green grass we’re mowing.

Took funds allotted for a deadly pandemic

Smiled with her black soul because her corruption is systemic

Purchased a plane to fly 119 miles

She doesn’t need Epstein, she made her own files

With greed, and crime, and blood on her hands

I hope she does jail time while we get Rob Sand

When I was a kid and my Mom wanted me to go to sleep, she’d take my glasses away.

I’ve had poor vision my whole life.

I can still remember the fight, full of tickles and laughter, that preluded the inevitable- blindness.

Most of my upbringing was just me and Mom, and Gramma Bev. I slept in the same bed as my mom until I was eleven, because most of the time it was just us. There was a TV in Mom’s room. She didn’t mind me listening to it while I drifted off.

But in the space between her taking my glasses and her coming to bed, I had learned a trick. If I put my pink blanket, made of soft waffle material with silk edges, over my head and focused one eye through the natural holes of the fabric– I could see! I watched Golden Girls with blanket over my head from 1998 to 2002.

I wish I knew then how lucky I was to be a kid alive at that time. I wish my biggest worry at night was still getting caught watching Golden Girls through a blanket over my head.

I want to hear from the German people who were adults during the holocaust, but were unaffected by it. By unaffected I mean: those who didn’t really know anyone Jewish or gay or brown, and didn’t live in an area forced to observe the lack of humanity. I want to hear from those who were able to turn off the radio and just focus on life inside their own bubble.

How did it feel to later come to understand the horror that was happening the next block over?

Would you have done anything differently knowing what you know now?