Bittersweet Benediction
by Crystal Craig

You, who flinch when the chant rises outside your gated lullaby of convenience,
who sighs because the game pauses
and the screen dares to speak of bodies
breaking beneath an unjust boot …

You, who must now explain to your grandson why people gather in amassing thunder,
why the streets are full of drums and grief and inconvenient truth,
as if the world owes you a seamless evening of entertainment
while it hemorrhages beneath your recliner…

You, who snickers at trembling voices,
at the cracked pleas of those whose skin has become a target
whose breath is a risk
whose existence is politicized and punished…

You, who praises vulgarity as clarity,
who crowns cruelty and calls it strength,
who feeds your hungry little internal tyrant
to feel powerful, relevant, chosen.  Justified.

Hear me.

This is not virtue signaling.
This is not noise.
This is not a tantrum of the "overly sensitive" or "too woke."
This is the howl of a species
recognizing its own extinction.

I do not wish your downfall.
I do not dream of revenge.
If I were omnipotent,
I would not strike you down—

I would soften you.

I would break open the calcified chambers of your heart
and pour in the unbearable nectar of empathy,
until compassion flooded your complacency.

I would make you feel how small and miraculous your life truly is,
threaded with grace and privilege and unearned abundance,
until your voice trembles not with contempt, but humility.

I would fill you with the bittersweet burden of stewardship –  
and a fiery passion to demand equality and sustainability,
so that global despair sighs,
with relief.   

For our planet and all her children.
For the ones already erased.
For the rainbow-kissed souls who dared to love outside the lines.
For the moon-blessed and divergent –
For the minorities and immigrants –
For the future of your grandson.

Shoulder to shoulder,
breath to breath,
this fragile human choir singing not for dominance,
but for healing and unity.