Couch Potato Poem by Hannah Shier

Couch Potato



Get up.
Don't you dare
sit back.
Get up!
Man, do we
have a lot
to do.
This world
needs cleaning,
the people need
changing -
so let's start
with me and you.
Children are
crying,
soldiers are
dying,
the poor are
beaten,
mothers are
weeping
as they
watch their
kids
O.D.
on streets,
in strangers'
homes.
This world
needs changing.
Disrespect is
okayed,
sexual deviencies
the norm -
and this is
only the beginning
of the storm.
So get up.
Don't you dare
sit back,
prop your feet
on that couch,
and let the world
fade away -
it's their problem,
not yours,
right?
Wrong.
Dead wrong.
Not when your
Eight years old
brother
is sniffing
and drinking
behind closed doors.
Not when your own
sister,
sixth grade,
is being molested
by your next door
neighbor.
The world is your
backyard. So
whether you
like it
or not,
you're a part
of it.
So get up
and don't you
dare
sit back.
Change it.
Change something.
Because,
you see,
this thing,
this life,
this world:
it ain't about
you.
It ain't about
me.
It's about your
friends who hand
with those 'cool dawgs'
and get shot down
in the streets
with no one around,
their 'friends' not
there to help them
even though it
was their actions
that helped,
played a role,
in this tragic action.
It's about how
their mothers
will weep,
their fathers
will drink,
and the siblings
will declare
revenge.
Oh,
what a
word.
Revenge.
So they, too,
team up
with those
'cool dawgs'
who they heard
'got the connections'
to make this
wrong
a right. And so the cycle
goes on.
It's about
the fourteen years old
girl who's getting
beaten
by her father
because she
spent one too many
nights in bed
with her boyfriend,
who she thought
she loved and
he her.
But now she's
pregnant
with no
boyfriend
in sight.
No daddy
for her child
who will grow up
to be mocked
and bullied
and picked on
because of
his mother's miserable
mistake.
It's about
those soldiers,
those soldiers
in Iraq,
those soldiers
in vietnam,
those soldiers
who fight
and die
for our country.
But we don't care.
No,
we don't.
And so we
drown ourselves
with the things
of this world,
thinking
it's not your
problem
so why
be involved?
Why do anything?
Why save a life
when you might
put your own
at risk.
Or worse,
put your rep
at risk.
It's a cold world
out there.
It's a cold world
in here.
And it's gotta
change.
So get up.
And don't you dare
sit back.

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