I feel this pull to make from clay what I can't To mangle the unanswerable in the meat of my hands To offer as digestible all the shrapnel and sand Like I'm qualified to even be what I am I feel this pull to fill up negative space To populate the blackness with platitudes and cliches "It's all so complicated; your heart, it just breaks" Saying nothing like it's something to say My friend says, "god is in the numbers There's mercy in math It's reality-adherent" So I'm working with that When I get buried in opinion Caught in narrative frames To simplify the process Find my answer that way It clarifies and starts to take shape For instance: 31 is greater than 1 And the gap will only widen every day this drags on And starvation's still a war crime no matter who you come from And journalists and children didn't earn being bombed I feel this pull to say there's only one tribe Clusters on a seesaw and for the disenfranchised You identify imbalance and throw your weight on their side What else is there, in the cold, even light Of every day I'm always dreading? I would much sooner hide Surround myself with blinders Live my comfortable life Until some Irish understanding In my cellular soul Sees the brutal subjugation And it won't let me go I'm not an expert but I know what I know