Wake up. Take a look around you. Do you like what you see?

Don’t look away. Stare at it. All of it. The ugliness. The bloodshed. The violence.

Listen. Can’t you hear the screams? The explosions? The cries for help?

Is this a world you want to live in? We only have one. This is it.

Look at what we have made the world. Look at what we have done to it. Look at your future. What shall be your legacy? What shall you leave for your children? What shall you leave for all who come after you? Will they think of you fondly, or will they spit at your grave?

The choice is yours.

Enough is enough. Stop making excuses. There can be no good reason for rape. There can be no good reason for genocide. There can be no good reason for war. We are pawns moved by ideologies created by the few. We have been stirred to anger, fear and violence by those who would benefit from our lack of wisdom. They use our own emotions against ourselves, and the worst part? We let them do it.

Calm down. Take a breath. Give yourself a moment. Think it through. We as a society are too reactive, exploding at the slightest provocation. Why have we become like this? Uncondition yourself and wake up. Take off those hate-tinted glasses and see. Never stop asking questions, especially the really hard ones. Step up, and stand up for all that is right and just. Bring chaos to its knees with love and kindness. Escape from the shackles yoked around our necks, and rise above to become the better human.

Together, we can make life better, for everyone.

The time has come

for me to visit you again.

I've brought you all the things

you used to like so much,

along with other stuff I'm told

the dead can't do without.

I wonder – can you hear me?

Are you really there?

Is this for the indifferent dead,

or is it for the living?

All I have are memories,

and memories of your memories.

That is all that's left of you,

and what I fear will become of me

the day I turn to dust.

As I take a stroll

through places I used to know

I see the playground alive,

full of laughing children,

bounding in unshackled joy.

Their parents sit there, quietly

smiling from the heart –

it's been far too long

they've had a ceiling for blue skies.

I see people going back to work,

people buying and selling

their life and their time

all of that for a little coin.

I see people fighting

with words and guns

at home and abroad

with loved ones

and demonized foreigners

when not too long ago

every goodbye could've been the last.

I see people have already forgotten

their new-found values

and the difference between

what they want and what they need.

Once more we take for granted

our loved ones, and ourselves.

Forgotten is the fear of tomorrow

as we sink back into the muck

of silly preoccupations

and petty squabbles.

Most of us will forget,

some never learnt,

and as normalcy returns,

so does the wool over our eyes.