Little Earthquakes

There was an earthquake in China
and the masses were crushed
so many faces, searching for lost children
So many faces, a reflection of my own.
The earth quaked in China
and the masses were defeated
and the children drowned
in a lake of tears
that had not been there
3 days before.

I watched from the safety of America
Where children are afloat
in Cotton candy dreams.
Where the masses are defeated
by obesity and Pharmaceuticals.
But never by the earth-
Or nature unless it is human.

The earth ruptured in China
Like the Levee’s in New Orleans
Or the chords in my heart
From the safety of my cubicle
Where I appease the masses into believing
they are safer for knowing me.
They are safer because we are America
And I perpetuate a dream
That is gilded at best, if you truly know what gilded means
After the gold leafing has chipped away.

420, 000 homes were destroyed
420, 000 -all crumbled to the earth from which it came.
But they still don’t know;
They don’t know how many souls,
how many mamas
and cousins
and sisters
and uncles
and brothers
and lovers
Have given up on a clear dream
And are smothering to death in a cloudy basement of a collapsed church.

I see a woman on the news, she is muddy and swollen
Lying on a stretcher, connected to a chord
On instinct she yanks at the slack until it’s taught
Needing to escape.
She realizes there is nowhere else to go
I see the moment she is broken.
The moment she lets go.
I see the loss, it yanks at my chord
I shut off the TV, before I become unplugged.