Riot Gear

Pack your go bag. Brush your teeth. Plan the day ahead then lie in bed watching emergency vehicle lights dance around your ceiling. Blue, white, red. A country scatters against your white walls. The helicopters hang in the air again. Sometimes they move. Your block is quiet tonight, but two streets down Broadway is on fire. The sirens weave crooked melodies on the breeze. Meet your deadline, try to eat. In a bunker on the capital, a very small man sits shaking. On his screen he barks and bares his teeth, drooling with the fallout. Do you ever get the feeling he took it too far and now he can’t get the train to stop?

The bakery whose windows were smashed in write messages of support on the particle board that goes up in their place. Your life matters. The rest is just windows.

One nation.
Indivisible.
For whom?