Right or Wrong

There’s a question, I ponder, with violence in mind:
Right or wrong, could you tell?
With your eyes, how do you see the world?
Can you, with cotton balls in your sockets?

A man steps on an ant with his boot
Or maybe he stomps it under his heel
A bird flies into the window because it can't see the glass
Or maybe it is trying to break in

A horse tramples on grass because it has nowhere else to run
The whale feasts on krill by the millions because it needs to eat
Dogs fetch sticks because they love the chase
But man is an animal, as much as he is worse

A weed grows because it wants to live
Only it grows where no one wants it
Providing shelter to pests and poisons
Killing life and societies by choice
Because the weed isn’t stupid
It knows it’s not welcomed
But it stays, because it doesn’t care
There’s not enough space in the stem for a heart to grow
Only mouths in its chest hunger, more and more

There’s a question, always nagging, with violence laid bare at my feet:
Right or wrong, do you care?
Do you treat anybody as though they are anybody?
Could you, a man who couldn't even stomach a mask over someone else's face?

Here, you stand your ground
Claiming your home and place
Insistent their are roaches worming their way through the cracks in the door
Invaders in your space
But here you stand, spikes in your feet, hammered in with your own hands
Muffs glued over your ears by comrades
Eyes gouged by the family
Your hands behind your back, but they’re not tied
And you leave your tongue as it is
Because you think we’ll listen
Because you think you’ll be heard
Because you want to be heard
Because you think the letters you string together make words with meaning
When all that comes out are wads of spit and sounds of wildebeests

You are a tree, you believe
Part of the forest like the rest
It’s in your roots, you say, you pride
Aiming to grow as tall as the rest
But it’s in your roots, curling out of the dirt
Overstepping your reach
Bringing down your branches to bring down our roofs
Fighting to be seen over the trees in your vicinity
Believing all others should live in your shadow

It’s your roots we rip out first
Solid ground we make give way
We will not miss the sap you seeped
We will not miss the oxygen you produced
We will plant another in your place
And grow it ourselves to become a proper redwood
What we make of your bark will have more bite than you ever mustered

Why would I mourn the weed I uproot when I’m protecting the garden?
Why would I care for the rings in a tree
When it raises its chin so high in superiority
And all it does is leer over us, threatening to take us down with it?

There’s a question, I repeat, when violence could be in my hand:
Right or wrong, which am I?
Would the world be saved if I took to act?
Would I know if I came to endanger it in my attempts?

I worry that I may mistake a tulip for a weed
That the sick dog I put down had a chance to be saved
A horse sprains its leg and you feel for it
Mourn and grieve while it’s still alive
Telling yourself it doesn’t have to be taken out back
But I can’t tell apart the raindrop in the hurricane
I only feel the wind threatening to rip my house from the ground
Every outskirt raindrop in that storm of self-righteousness bashing outside my window
And I fear it, even if I’m not in the path of the storm
Because I may be the only one standing when everyone else become rubble
What faith can I have that their winds will not tear up neighborhoods
When their track record speaks for itself?

Maybe I could learn how to pull out a stake from a foot
How to melt glue safely off of skin
How to place an eye back into its head
Awaiting to see if a man can come back to his senses
Do I hammer them back in place if he hates me?
Do I hold them close to their prior place to make him behave?
Could he, will he, be a man willing to look outside his door
And see it is not his neighbors bashing on doors?
Or would it be better to leave these men trapped in their boxes
And throw them into the ocean
Leaving the work of escape and saving to themselves?

The most dangerous part about being born with hands
Is knowing what they can do
Knowing it is up to you
To make that discretion
For every dove you can lift back into its nest
There’s a home of wasps you can shake down
Maybe, in that order, the doves would help fend off the wasps
Maybe, in that order, the doves would be afraid of you too

Right or wrong, this is the middle of a function
An argument has been made, and a solution must be found
And I, as so many more, have to fill in the blank, makes the steps from point A to point B
Right or wrong, I have to know them
What actions can I take, or should
What actions make me better, the same, or worse
Right or wrong, I must weigh my heart against another's
Or determine if we can both sit on the same side of the scale

There’s a question, always considered, before I act:
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around,
Was it right to let it fall all on its own?
Should I have helped it stand again, or should I have been the one to chop it down?

Grimer, the Sludge Pokémon

“Grimer are another species of Pokémon to emerge into the world in recent memory. Believed to be reanimated sludge empowered by the moon’s light, these grimy creatures are maybe the most naturally toxic species on the planet. Their stench can be overpowering on the senses, chasing people and Pokémon out of the area to avoid their presence; and they will never return, as Grimer seep a germ-infested fluid from their body that they leave as a trail, which soaks into every surface it touches so that nothing may ever grow in its place again. They survive mostly on waste and filth, so mankind has reorganized many cities further away from facilities that produce such so the Grimer can congregate as far away as possible from organized society.”

“Just as much as they are recently discovered, Grimer are also one of the quickest Pokémon to face extinction. As mankind has increased its efforts towards a cleaner waste system and cracked down on the dispersion of harmful elements into the world, so too have they left little waste for the Grimer to feed on and sustain themselves. Less food means less energy, and less energy means shorter life spans, and shorter life spans means their slower-than-average reproduction cycle cannot keep up with the numbers they lose. As human society continues to improve, the Sludge Pokémon finds itself at a choice; evolve or disappear. And the Grimer has already chosen the former. In the region of Alola, Grimer have evolved to survive on trash and garbage instead of pure waste and filth. They have also grown crystals across their bodies that eliminate the stench that makes their other variant less desirable, so they can now live among human society. Many businesses across the region employ these Alolan Grimer and their evolution of Muk to help combat the islands’ trash problem, and the general areas of the islands house them in dumping grounds to remove all the previous waste and keep anything new from piling up. It is believed that within a few decades, this will be the only variant of the Grimer still alive in the world.”

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