Fraught

A poem for a world on fire

I never expected to last this long.

Hell,
I never expected 
to make it past twenty-five.

No plans laid,
no intentions or aims.
I didn’t count 
on still being alive.

They say it gets better.

I suppose it did.

I’m no longer just alive,
I want, now, to live.

But the world I wake to
grows evermore fraught.

Famine.
Fire.
Flood.

Streets stained 
with innocent blood.

Borders harden.
Humanity thins. 

Corruption.
Deceit.
Abject bigotry.

Hashtagging our dead, 
pleading 
for sense,
for decency.

It’s darkness.

It’s mess.

But it’s what I know best.

It’s hope 
that needs practicing now.

Not empty thoughts and prayers, 
but trembling hope 
that hurts.

The kind that’s uncertain. 
Frightening.

The kind that demands full use 
of a muscle 
I’ve only just begun 
exercising.

I am afraid 
of what comes next.

I don’t believe 
in neat endings.

I don’t know 
how this gets fixed.

But give me 
some hope to follow,

and I will run.