Now

Now is news—Now is a current affairs show sponsored by 
a sugar-free energy drink—Now is all the shades of blood 
we’ve gleamed from police procedurals and body cams—
Now we know how to react to another lifeless body shared 
on social media—Now is a call-out in the middle of the night
—that the media will sensationalise—that an ambiguous noun 
cannot comprehensively address—because they choose their 
words based on the perpetrator’s skin colour—or the heart-
strings dangling from the victim’s backstory—Now we wonder 
if this is where our children’s futures play out—drowning in 
the fuzzy hum of television sets stuck on tragedy—Now, when 
you were the blunt force trauma they brought to an election 
after party—Now, when the world was a set of scales no one 
trusted—tipping between the inertia of another moment of 
silence and 'now is not the time for politics'—Now is a school-
yard—Now is a massage parlour and a mosque—Now is a 
cafeteria serving today’s special—Now is the swampy heat 
of a basement club—Now is a safe space—Now is rendered 
void—Now is never here when you need it—Now is forever 
lost—faster than a weapon thrust into breath—bigger than 
a front page headline in red—more invisible than a queer body 
or a coloured body hiding in plain sight—but foolishly thinking 
that your skin peeled back is of no alarm—because now the 
real world is out there trapping its young—and we are so easy 
to convince that now will one day come