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