“THE WEEK AFTER”
By Gabrielle Faust
November 14, 2024
There was a tension in the air.
Thick and pungent.
The kind that sets your senses on edge,
Bristling your skin,
Causing you to, unconsciously,
Clench your teeth
Until your jaw hurts.
People averted their eyes
As they scuttled about,
Trying to pantomime the motions
Of waking existence.
As if nothing has happened.
The sky was blue.
The air cool.
No one moved as if unseen.
Men appeared
Either ashamed or emboldened.
A terrifying truth
They each wore on their sleeves,
And the tilt of their heads.
Back or bent,
Shoulders slumped,
Or squared
With an arrogance
Women recognized.
Body language.
A new currency
In fragile dissemination,
And psychological discrimination,
The evaluation of safe and unsafe,
In this new reality.
Women looked afraid,
As they dressed now without makeup,
Their mouths hard lines of grim disbelief.
Haunted shadows beneath their eyes
From sleepless grieving.
They donned baggy,
Nondescript clothing,
And ball caps,
As if they were trying to fade
Into the concrete backdrop
Of the bustling city,
Like whisps of steam disregarded.
Those in between Christian distinction,
Of standardized, white-washed preference,
Held their breath.
Behind closed doors,
They clung desperately to one another
Through shivering, terrified stifled breaths,
And raw unfiltered digital sentiments that
Echoed into the void of screams,
Hibernating in harrowing expectation
Of the poisoned tipped arrows
Too soon to encroach upon
Their sightlines.
Backwards walks the world in a blink,
Decades unraveling to
The death knell of
A fascist symphony of hate.
The only communication,
Reduced to blunt transactions
And rehearsed monotone societal niceties,
Strained and difficult,
As they were forced past vocal cords
Tight with trepidation.
It was a peculiar uncertain fear,
Bitter all-consuming dread
A souring of the soul
Like the sight of a dangerously dark yellow sky
Indicating a tornado,
Dark clouds and a low moan of wind
Crouching upon the horizon.
The air had been sucked out of the room,
Leaving people breathless
And standing in the truth
That friends and family
Had turned upon one another,
Within hours a new code
Had been devised,
Head down, eyes forward,
That stranger’s smile
Was no longer to be trusted
To be their true intent.
Especially those
Donning a blue bracelet.
The creaking ice
Beneath our feet,
That we had listened to
For the past decade,
Was finally giving way,
Soon to bury us,
All deep within
The icy watery grave,
Of this new America
We call home…
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