The Disease

I was asked to perform a piece of poetry for a male beauty pageant in my residence hall. I refused to perform something I had already written, so I culminated my most recently acquired knowledge of a human issue into an original piece.

There is a disease
That kills more people
Than aids, malaria, or any war in history
And it does so,
Invisibly

So many innocent souls
Living, or dying, in misery

This disease is contagious,
Extremely so
But don’t worry
Education is the vaccination

Employment is the treatment
Money is the cure

Poverty

The bullet to the chest
Is less painful
Than the bill to remove it

Nowhere to call home
No one to call family
Not hard to see
Why they live in calamity

Scrape bodies off the street
Burn them
There is no funeral
There is no memorial
They have no name

John Doe
One of many
No vote
No say
Dead in a day

So close to home
Nothing we can do

But wait…

Fight with your wallet
Fight with your word
Fight with your vote
Fight with your heart

Buy a man lunch
Buy him a bus ticket
Hire him to do your dishes
A job is one of his very few wishes

What is this American dream
If the only dream you have
Is to eat three meals
Or sleep in a real bed

If we are all created “equal”
Why is this equation not balanced?

Why does the place I was born
The color of my skin
The education of my parents
The gender I claim…

Why does it dictate,
How much food I can put on my plate

One Love.