DEATH BY DISTRACTION
People fly out of car windshields
in collisions because they can’t
pull their eyes away from their phones—
they forgot how dangerous it was
to pursue dopamine boosts,
cheap thrills that can kill them
like their votes killed this country,
people dragged from their homes,
people and their rights erased
by self-serving fascist swine.
One can hope for a dreaded civil war,
but people will forget in a day’s time
how childish our leaders are
in their lazy reach for technology—
that’s what is killing this country
and the world, that people forget
so easily and that’s something
our elected oligarchs
knowingly exploit
until they can sit back
and watch the world burn
until it’s time to bulldoze it
and bury our bodies underneath
the blood stained land
of a new and twisted country
who no longer knows freedom,
something that has become
such old and fake news,
the truth living in exile.
Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) and Invasion of the Shadow People (Luchador Press, 2022), in addition to over a dozen chapbooks and split books. His work has appeared in Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Gargoyle, Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Heavy Feather Review, San Pedro River Review and Trailer Park Quarterly, among others. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.
