The reason I want to die today

Is my overwhelming shame

At being a human who rapes the earth

Pollutes the air and sea

Demands the right to take what I want

With no notion of, or interest in, the consequence

 

The reason I want to die today

Is my heart breaking sorrow

For sentient beings waiting in abbatoirs

At this very moment,

Hungry, de-hydrated, trembling

In darkened rooms, on cold, hard floors

Listening to the steely song of death

 

The reason I want to die today

Is total self disgust

When I stand with friends, family, colleagues.

People I respect and love and do not speak my truth

For fear of being shunned, dismissed.

My silence, snake like, colludes, condones our crime

 

Sometimes I want to live another day

And hope glows like embers on which I blow

That sometimes ignite, burst into flames

Or, sometimes grow cold, fade and die.

 

But mostly I want to die.

To free myself

From cowardice,

From clouded judgements.

From the inability to jump

From this fence

And say it how it is.

Under a spell of narcissism

We cannot tell

Wrong from right

Day from night

We create a living Hell