Heinous Crimes Shock Us

 

We get wound up
over the big stuff;
senseless tragedy strikes
like kids shooting down kids
in a school yard,
massacres unfolding on college campuses.
Mothers throw babies in dumpsters.
A son shoots his mother.
Women get raped in college.
Children get sold for sex trafficking.

It shocks us.
Yet, we can’t seem to get the simple things right.

Like these two people here,
both of them separately
sitting sideways, in paired chairs,
taking up two seats
on a full bus.
Several people are standing
in the aisle.
A mother staggers
with her two infants in her arms
because the available seats
are held hostage.

These sorry excuses for human beings
scowl at me as if to ask, “what?”,
as I hover a second or two, over them
in hope that they move
their damn legs, but of course,
they don’t.

I’ve never understood people like this.
We’re strangers.
What has anyone done
to deserve being treated like this?
I don’t know you.
Whatever treatment you’re projecting
in reflection of those who’ve been unkind to you
is unwarranted.

I am not those people.

Scoot over already!
Let the poor mother sit down,
at least.

If not, then burn with me
let’s have a conversation
on this bus that neither of us
want to be on.

If we had our way
we never would’ve met.
Why not make it mean something?

We get wound up
over the big stuff;
senseless tragedy strikes and
we’re shocked.
Yet, we can’t seem to get the simple things right.

The public transit train stops.
The doors open and I go to step off,
only to find a wall of people
no gaps through which to depart my train-car.
The crowd shoves their way on,
oblivious to the friction of mowing me down.

I then must nudge and
hurriedly maneuver through the mass
once again and exit
before the operator closes the doors.

I’ve missed stops because of such disdain.
Yet, it shocks us when we hear or read of senseless tragedies.

Why should it?
We can’t get simple kindness right.

Humanity, disaster is imminent.




Copyright © 2015 – Bobby Travis – All Rights Reserved