A Poem for the 2016 Election

​I Just Pissed Myself
 
You know what pisses me off?
Me.
 
I’m pissed I’m angry,
that I’m so intolerant
I can’t accept what my fellow
countrymen and women have done.
I’m pissed that I can get so pissed.
I want to punch walls, take out my gun
(yes, I own one), shoot every Trump
sign still hanging on my neighbors’
houses. Throw eggs at their windows,
confront them with their own ignorance.
 
I am pissed I am convinced I’m right
about the future. It makes me  irate to confront
my own worst fears come to pass. The man
we just elected to lead the country is evil.
I’m pissed that I live in a land where this can
and has happened. I’m furious at the millions
who feel they’ve done the right thing. I get
nauseous thinking of four years of him and his hate
in all our faces – being the face, the mouth of this country.
I am pissed I bought into the lie that we are better than that.
 
I am fuming at myself for not having the awareness
that people of color, LGBTQ folks and women have
had all along, and not just with him now, but all their lives
all the time, with anyone. I am pissed that hate crimes
are on the rise. I am upset that I feel outnumbered,
powerless to stop time, turn away from this dark future.
 
I am angry that I don’t have the self-control,
the gentleness of nature, the kindness to give
him half a chance… no, wait. That pisses me off more,
that I would consider such a thing – who can be
reasonable in the face of unreason?
 
All that leads me here: this is what I’ve come to? Ending up
an angry, bitter old man? I don’t want to be that guy –
for me, for my wife, my sons, my granddaughter.  
But I don’t see much alternative, which is why
I’m so pissed…at me.