Live your life as though everything you did
Was eternally decisive.
Live as though the survival and destruction of Daesh and of all Daeshis
Depended upon you, and upon you alone.
Live as though the transition from Darwinian capitalism
To a renewed, responsible, accountable and empowering welfare capitalism
Was a decision resting in your frail and trembling hands.
Live as though the equality of women and men and of all genders
Ran in a straight line from your very own relationships
As frail and dispiriting as they can be.
Live as though every sneer at LGBT people or antisemitic joke or anti-Muslim slur
Was armed with blazing spikes
And every word of comfort, of compassion and of hard-headed empathy
Was blazing with healing fury.
Live as if this poem wasn’t just a rhetorical & artistic appeal to your better nature.
Live because what I am saying and seeing in my heart is real.
…
And deep down, you know it too.