A new dawn

Yes we can
we always could
but will we?

You see,
when you have abused, brutalized, beaten, scarred
your children and the mother of your children
you cannot make things right by saying from today
everything will be different
will change
all will be new

First you must staunch the blood
there
and there
and in here; repair
the fractured rib
the cracked socket of the girl's, by chance,
undamaged eye; the leg will mend
though the boy will always falter with fear

And the broken spirits, though soothed, untangled
woven again, will lifelong be fragile
never quite right

Remember the past, undaunted, is ever present
at your shoulder, at my shoulder;
no matter our declarations endless of "moving on",
"lessons learned", "moving forward", no matter
the countless new dawns
the new days we keep announcing are here.
It is time to grow up
to admit, at the least to ourselves,
that we were wrong

This is not a movie, this is not a video game, this is not
a song
This must not be us, juvenile, patting ourselves on the back
cravenly believing we are right because we are sincere,
because we are strong

A new dawn in hell is a new dawn
in hell
and only the future
nano-second by nano-second becoming the past
will tell whether the present tense
for the trampled ones
will be the present made well
___