You don’t understand <br />poetry or poets, <br />youth or age…, <br />walks in the rain, <br />the scent of lilacs <br />in the springtime, <br />sparklers and fireflies <br />or the gauntlet of <br />ignorance an elderly <br />faceless black woman <br />endured throughout <br />every season of <br />her life <br /> <br />You don’t know the stress <br />of being hungry, poor, <br />abandoned … <br />And never <br />could you feel <br />the choice a woman <br />must make after <br />being raped <br />or told the fetus <br />will be severely <br />disabled at birth <br /> <br />How could <br />you possibly <br />unclench the <br />the naïve fists, if <br />you could never <br />relate to cowering eyes <br />or suppressed tears <br />caused by heinous <br />abuses too disturbing <br />to imagine <br /> <br />Words are weak, <br />poems useless. <br /> <br />Your cowardly conscience <br />will forever be void of <br />guilt, shame or knowledge, <br />if you never peel <br />away the thick scab <br />of intentional gullibility <br /> <br />You don’t understand, <br />because you choose not to. <br /> <br />And we all suffer alone.<br /><br />Tim Labbe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cowards-5/
