The Cost of Comfort
No one is comingto save us.
Not our democratic institutions.
Not allies who trusted us
to uphold shared values.
One by one, our allies
pull away, creating space,
room enough for our enemies
to slide in close,
to snuggle up
with those who care nothing
for our history,
for our democracy,
for the citizens
meant to be protected.
Profit and power
are up for grabs
in a contest where participants
vie for the right
to party on the backs
of the populace,
to toast themselves
while our houses burn.
Silence is complicity.
I understand your hesitation,
your fear.
You could lose family,
friends,
your job,
the comfortable life
you have worked to build.
Meanwhile, people
are losing their lives.
Not hypothetically.
Not someday.
Now.
Children are being swept up,
vanished into prisons unknown.
Not hypothetically.
Not someday.
Now.
Cosplaying losers
dressed in military garb
play soldier, play patriot,
feel like big men
behind guns and uniforms
they haven’t earned,
as they rip families apart,
disappear people
whose only crime
was their ethnicity,
and murder citizens
for the audacity
of filming them,
for daring to object,
for refusing to look away.
Neutrality has never
saved anyone.
Do not obey in advance.
No one is coming to save us.
That is up to us.
Poetry by Melinda K Zarate
Read 39 times
Written on 2026-01-24 at 22:14
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