United We Stand…

We said it long ago. It’s funny how we forgot the meaning of one of the words in our name, that most important adjective.

This virus was a once-in-a-lifetime world crisis — and an opportunity for us to stand in solidarity & collectively take personal responsibility for each other.

Instead, we shucked our sense of honor and public obligation, however much we had, anyway, and put false individual priorities over the collective need.

How foolish we have been. And how deadly.

Our breath became a weapon, and I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised how many gladly brandished it. We have taught that love is weakness, that power comes from cruelty.

What will the doctors & nurses feel about us after this? They have spent almost a year in the fire. Surely they have been burned. Surely there will be scars. Surely they will still flinch, years from now.

Some of us have become recluses. Like thousands of humans before us, we have hidden from the plague in our homes, forgone our social needs in lieu of survival. Who will we be when we emerge? Glowing screens have kept us informed of the outside world, and it does not seem interested in anything but denial.

Fuck your feelings.

I quote the flags flapping in the wind, messages of our dear leader. Stop the bullshit. Drain the swamp. Get on board the trump train.

Even for those of us who aren’t mortally wounded, we have doubled down so hard on our…