My Poetry

Too Many

This might be my favorite poem of mine so far idk. I wrote this as a part of my application to join a group in my town that teaches factual and inclusive sex ed to groups of students and adults. (I had to do an art piece that "represents what I'm passionate about" and so I wrote a poem). I couldn't decide what to write about because there were too many problems that I care about. That became the basis for the poem. I did get into the group which is super cool.

There are too many problems, we can't even fix one,

We're all just ants dying alone under a scorching sun,

There are too many problems, where do we start?

None of the horrors of the world can be summarized into art.

There are too many problems, death on the streets,

A country brimming with selfish, racist, police,

There are too many problems, I cannot breathe,

Privilege excuses murder, the rich walk free and the poor plead.

On their knees, black people in cells,

Just because their car faintly smells -

of weed, it wasn't even theirs, yet now they are chained,

Because for-profit prisons want to keep them detained.

Or people at the border in cages, alone,

Children treated so cruelly, literally thrown

away from their parents, their lives, their friends,

'They are stealing our jobs,' new excuses for the same prejudices again and again.

Or women in China being raped and killed,

There are too many problems, we need to rebuild,

Every system, every structure, every democracy, we don't have enough time,

Meanwhile, the planet is burning and ocean levels continue to climb.

Covid cases are surging; first world countries are receiving -

vaccines. While the rest of the world is stuck sobbing and grieving- 

the newly dead. There are too many problems, what should I be saying?

We're flooding, and burning, and drowning, and fighting, and killing, and hating.

There are too many problems, a dress is not a yes,

Rape is still rape even with the excuse of drunkenness,

On the topic of dresses, he should be able to wear one,

Androgyny is masculine and feminine, you cannot do it wrong.

Too many problems, we are always discussing, arguing, nothing ever changes,

Basic human rights are deemed less important than foreign exchanges,

Queerness is illegal in 70 plus countries. Why? How?

Why is a mistranslated text from thousands of years ago still relevant now?

Microaggressions and cat-calls echo in the streets,

Slut-shaming, fatphobia, and pretty privilege appear in tweets,

Unwanted hands and objectification linger in the stench of bars,

Women feel terrified to walk alone to their cars.

Too many problems, your spaghetti strap offends -

your male teachers and your male classmates and friends,

Men are called players, women are called sluts and whores,

'Why didn't you say anything?' They did and they were ignored.

Teens sit at their toilet, finger in throat, acid in mouth,

Feel the need to skip meals for days, that's all they will allow - 

themselves. Scars decorate wrists and thighs,

Long sleeves in the summer, pain covered up with lies.

So often people don't get the help they so desperately need,

Why does our society make people want to die, to bleed?

People are not broken things needing to be fixed,

But their pain is not invalid and they shouldn't be dismissed.

There are too many problems, bodies beneath the Golden Gate,

I'm so tired of this, how do people have the energy to hate -

on strangers over the internet, on the quiet kid at school,

There are too many problems and people are cruel.

The rich get richer, the poor poorer, wall street is safe and sound,

Meanwhile businesses owned by black women continuously get shut down,

People beg on corners and we look away, drive on,

Anti homeless architecture, 'you can't sleep here,' 'be gone.'

There are too many problems, and we run from the blame,

'Our parents did this,' 'their parents did that,' as if we are not the same,

As if our children won't be given a world that is worse than the one given to us,

As if people do anything besides break each other's trust.

The depressed are blamed for their depression, the homeless for their homelessness,

Sexual assault survivors are blamed for the assault, the lonely for their loneliness.

You ask us to change this crumbling world cause you cannot carry your newfound guilt,

So you passed it off to us when you realized what you had built.

We run from blame, from guilt, from feeling the pain that we have caused,

You cannot pray away the problems, beg, plead for some god -

yo rescue us from the rubble of our self inflicted destruction,

Hate is taught and apparently we have been given good instructions,

Because the world is full of bigotry. But the world is also full of hope,

So I will go down fighting for the future and struggling to cope,

With the blame that everyone else is too scared to bear,

There are too many problems, is fear enough to make people care?