This US election cycle has been a long exhausting run. And we have learned an inconvenient, ugly truth about ourselves in the process.

Once it became socially acceptable to lie, slander, subjugate, ridicule, denigrate, marginalize, judge, discriminate and hate, our worst angels oozed to the surface, from under the moss-adorned rocks we hoped would contain them, and flaunted themselves in broad daylight. We never wanted to believe that this element of our society was legion. But we can no longer fool ourselves. What’s more, it is who we are as a nation. It is our friends, co-workers, neighbors, family. And the most disturbing thing we have learned is that it is us too, all of us, each time we choose to feel anger, to lash out toward those who don’t agree with or believe as we do.

It has been shocking to witness my own range of emotions as they have shifted from light to dark, from compassion to frustration and anger, to feel that surge of satisfaction after having crushed an opposing view with “the truth”. It has been sobering to realize that even in the name of all that is right and good and true, my own heart and soul can be found lacking when my intention is self-serving.

Yes, it’s true. Most of us are a combination of good and evil. What matters most is not that we are both, but that we can always choose to do better. We choose.

This is my final pre-election post. But I realize that it is just the beginning for all of us and this dysfunctional country of ours, to take what we have learned about ourselves…and do better.

✌️& ❤️ ~ kat

Shi Sai Sunday’s Week in ReVerse – 6 November 2016

rest our souls
each minute crept excruciatingly into hours
it can be tricky
each is hoping you’ll believe
memories whisper
no doubt about it,
privilege creeps in
the what’s don’t matter, for’s don’t care
“Because I said so,”
la, la…la, la, laaaa!
you and yours (we) can do better

~kat

The Shi Sai (formerly known as a ReVerse) is a new form I came up with during Poetry Month in April 2016. I’ve actually been writing shu sai for years but was inspired to give it a proper name. It is a poem created by taking one line of verse from several poems of an author’s own collection. The shi sai is done as a review of a series or collection of poems and therefore, each line should flow in chronological order of the dates the poems were written (from oldest to new). The lines chosen should be the author’s favorite from each poem. This form works best if the author resists the temptation to read the full new poem before all the verses have been added. (It helps one to resist the impulse to change a line to make it “fit”.