Muzzled
We were masked for two years
I stopped seeing masks
And started seeing muzzles
They wanted to shut us up
In the land of the free
We were usually loud
But now
We stayed quite
Too afraid
Too confused
A few people had died
The fear spread through the confused
The confused spread the fear
How quick we were to judge an unmuzzled
How quick we were to judge
Gas went up
Anxiety went up
Suicide went up
Shipments stopped
The supply chain was fucked
Everything seemed fucked
We could see the game clearly now
The game the politicians play
The games the media play
The games the billionaires play
But china
We didn’t understand China
They held their cards close to their chest
Our masks were made in China
And maybe
So was this virus
They kept their experiments secret
They kept everything secret
Vaccines made in America
Masks made in China
A lab funded by America
In China
It went around
And around
And around
Enough to make heads spin
Enough for people to refuse to see it
It was too much
Too much to understand
Too much to follow
The information trail led everywhere
Whatever answer you wanted
You could find
There was pain
Sorrow
Disease
Poverty
Starvation
Protests
Riots
Elections
New voices
New platforms
An unintended passing of the torch
It was all the material a writer needed
The darkness made good art
This was a writers wet dream
So much pain to tap into
I tapped
And tapped
And tapped
I drained myself dry
I drained the world dy
Everyone and everything became research
I tried to take the darkness
And spin it
To make it something else
Something real
Something more honest
To take the darkness
And face it
To point it out
For the blind to see
And hope
They will take off their muzzles
And realize
It was time to fight
It was time to speak up
It was time to fight for our voices
or else
we'd lose them