burial

I get on a plane

To the other side of the world

And something touches me 

On the inside 

When the recording says—

“Be sure to adjust your own mask

Before helping others.”

That we humans saw fit

That we needed this reminder

In case of life or death 

Every time we get on a plane 

While in another plane

Bombs are being dropped on homes

And hospitals full of people 

Just trying to make it another day

Just trying to give their kids

A life in this impossible world

That keeps showing them

Despite their best efforts that

They don’t matter enough 

We watch quiet from our 

White washed coffins

While they dig unmarked graves

For unrecognizable human bodies 

For their friends and sisters and babies

We turn on our white noise fans

In our white walled apartments 

That we are not afraid of burying us alive 

We wash our kids white feet 

And don’t let them see the news

And who do we think we are

That we deserve any better

That we have anywhere to call home

That we have not been left alone 

And who the hell do we think we are

To say they don’t matter enough?

This too is an unmarked grave, 

A death, not worthy of burial

— olivia gwyn