Photo courtesy of NASA's image library
When someone asks me what I do / Behind the news
I'm drowning in news flashes; in the age of digital-first
on the web, breaking on Twitter, cue cards for shouting
anchors—deets inside on the 18-year-old's date rape,
your sedan is causing sea level rise, three Muslim men
killed for meat, easy one-pot recipes, blowjob tips that'll
make him go oh-la-la—all get churned by idealists: me,
whose father lays awake during her night shifts, an uneven
boy with a celebrity's surname, and a hundred others who
smoke cheap cigarettes at the local tea shop, looking for
truth in his stories; seller's daily income, or inflation rate,
number of daily rapes, our channel's TRP, or money we
make, are painted numbers we forget when we see them
on paper. Back in journalism school, my professor told me:
you save yourself from news if you swallow another's pain
after it has shot up your throat like liquidating lava;
my whole life I've been trained to be with you
