A Load Too Heavy

by Jenny Morelli

Image credit: Mario Purisic on Unsplash

These days, the world

is a load too heavy

for one person to hold

with mortgages and taxes,

work responsibilities

and car maintenance. Everything

these days seems heavier

than we ever could have

imagined; heavy

like a dark-as-night past

we thought was trapped forever

in history books

and museums,

but here it is again,

rearing its ugly head

spewing hate, spewing violence,

spewing ICE

like some malevolent genie

released from its bottle

or a shaken fizzy drink

uncorked, and now,

we’re nothing to some,

we’re everything to others,

we’re grappling with an unseen weight,

with where we fit in,

with when to stand up

and when to lay low;

with we must speak up

for those with no voice.

These things are too heavy

for one person to hold.

We must reach out

to help make this heaviness

lighter for us all.

Like a monologue

that never shuts up,

we’re forced to listen

to the lunatic rhetoric

that’s turned home-grown heroes

into domestic terrorists,

and so we must become

a force that’s willing to fight back.

We must become the thing

that’s too heavy to hold;

must become a stronger monologue

that never shuts up,

must become a large family,

a winter wonder in white,

an army strong enough

to trample the ICE

with a fiercest force

that can’t be reckoned with,

and soon, the red-stained streets

will be restored

to a pristine and pure glory,

with kids building snowmen, snow-

women, snowchildren,

snowpups

while parents

drink hot chocolate

and we all reclaim the peace

and love thy neighbor will prevail

because love always wins

when we help others

carry a load too heavy

for one person.

***

Jenny Morelli

Jenny Morelli is a high school English teacher who lives in New Jersey with her husband and cat. She is often either inspired by her students or else they're triggering memories in her of when she was young and struggling with her self-confidence. She has been published in a number of literary magazines, including Spare Parts for a novel excerpt, Spillwords for several themed poems, and Bottlecap Press for her own chapbook This is Not a Drill.