The excitement grows like a great inhale

Watching the glass ceiling’s break come to bear

Friends around me ensuring sense will prevail

Yet nothing comes to stop the hate in the air

A map I was taught to look at and love

Bleeds slowly, hugely, from the inside out,

Red draining sea to shining sea, the dove

Shot from the sky, spirals down, peace in clots

Oh my God do I have to go into hiding

We’re screaming, crying, just disbelieving

How much we are hated, made to start biding

Our time until we can go on breathing —

The future is ugly, but it is pending

So, just maybe, the world isn’t ending