Feel Again

Living in a world of silence would be unbearable,

So we can’t stop hearing.

Life comes alive through our eyes,

So we can’t stop seeing.

But,

A world with excruciating numbness must be preferable

Because it seems to be too easy to turn off our feelings.

Watching homicides, bombings, kidnappings,

Casually flipping through the channels on our TVs.

Barely pausing to think, 

We deepen the crease in our brows saying, 

"That's terrible. I'm so sorry."

The last two words spoken as our eyes wander back to our activities.

We shed our sensitivities like dead, brittle leaves from autumn trees.

When was the last time you gave something a second thought,

Or laughed so hard, your sides ached,

Or cried yourself dry.

When has something in the world angered you so deeply 

You did something about it.

What will it take to move us slightly,

To outrage us, to confound us,

To wind us so tightly

We will lift ourselves out of the comatose slumbers

That we call living.

Sipping on spirits till we lose sensation,

Popping pills till we disappear,

Desperately searching for an exit,

Scrambling for a way out.

We’re always running.

And somewhere while running we fell hard,

Severed nerve endings, wiping out all sensitivity,

Fractured spines leaving us paralyzed.

Are our senses so dull, we won't feel the kicking in a mother's swollen belly,

Or the electricity in a touch when we first fall in love,

Or the cold, dead flesh of a life once was.

We kiss with hollow lips.

We cry with forced tears.

Our smiles don't reach our eyes.

Our guards are up so high, 

We need to scale the walls we build around our pride

In order to reach ourselves.

Too afraid to look directly into each other's eyes

As if human connection will cause us to smolder. 

Too scared to allow anything to reach deep enough,

To stir the recesses of our souls.

When has being human become out of fashion.

Our hearts have grown callous.

Our empathy has gone numb.

We ask why love is dead.

Here is the reason.

We abuse and misuse

Every pleasure we are given.

We volunteer our bodies,

Sell our secrets.

We are careless with our words.

We claim to love things like pizza and cropped sweaters.

It's no wonder "I love you"

Is an empty promise.

And we discard relationships like an old slice of pizza

Or a cropped sweater we've grown out of.

Custom-made puppets,

Sewn together based on someone else's point of view. 

Living in dollhouses

With dainty things 

Made of plastic.

Stab a blade into the heart of society

And drag it through its chest,

Would anything spill out

Other than cotton stuffing and silicone.

When has a pretty face become a substitute for genuine strength.

With every piece of clothing we strip off our body,

We sacrifice a layer of our humanity.

Purity has become prudity. 

Shame is obsolete.

They say we’re influenced by our surroundings.

Have we become machines.

The lifeless drones we carry in our pockets,

The screens we spend so much time with.

All day we’re touching,

But not feeling,

Not seeing

The world around us,

As it is evolving,

As it is dissolving.

And the question remains,

When will we be man enough to feel again.