What is offensive?
A word?
An idea?
A belief that
does not sit easy?
An opinion that challenges
the popular view?
A joke that went too far?

And why?
Why are you offended?
Because it revealed a
certain truth that wants to be
claimed?

Out of what does your
offence come?
Feign pain?
Terror that things will change?
Fear for a future you cannot control?
A slight against taste and sensibility?

I hear your voices everyday.

I see offence everywhere
but it’s not of your kind.

It’s silent victims without
so much as a voice.
It’s poverty real in suburbs and
streets.
It’s turning away from distress.
It’s shaming and degrading just for fun.
It’s the loss of humanity–the I-It
that turns a person into stone.

What is offensive is neglect.
Cruelty.
War.
Profit without care.
Political gain.

I am filled with offence and
I care not for your version of correctness
or the fashions of popular outrage.

I see instead persons and
I witness their soundless pain.

 

21/2/2023