i used to write poetry that expressed how i (still) feel

You announced that life is beautiful,
a sacred thing;
it was not a suggestion, nothing like a harmless challenge
and I was not permitted to be discordant.
Again I was reminded,
no, prod and subtly forced in your Nazi method
to participate in your joy.

Through the looking glass is not all
white rabbits
small, harmless creatures
with pink eyes winking up at you,
daring you to scoop them up in your Mother Teresa hands.
The fur does not stay white and smooth
like a baby's skin, like ivory
because children are pure, white as snow.
That snow melts.

Where is your great happiness now?
Raping and pillaging the countryside;
he wasn't even beautiful when he was born,
rupturing from the only good home you've ever provided.
There was pain - you snap at men, who don't understand -
you both bled;
but he knows that better than you do.

Existing is a curse.
I tried to warn you about the cracks in the sidewalk;
he just steps on them to spite you
and I'm stranded,
like you were,
to bless this accursed Earth
with more sanguinary plebeians

Sarah Belbeck, 2010