I watch the world spinning faster
than I can follow,
a wheel thrown down a hill
with no one reaching for the brake.

Decisions made in haste,
words fired like arrows,
people stepping over the rights of others
as though compassion
has become an inconvenience.

Where is the moral compass
we once carried inside our hearts?

Somewhere above us,
a man sits upon his golden throne,
surrounded by wealth
and power and influence,
and maybe he thinks he can
control the world.

The people below think,
“If he can do it, why shouldn’t I?”

And so it becomes the language of the day:
take what you can,
protect what is yours,
do as you’re told,
and don’t ask too many questions.

In a little more than a year,
it feels as though the ground beneath us
has shifted.

A world once familiar has become unsteady,
its people divided into those who hold the reins
and those expected to follow where they lead.

The ones at the top continue to climb,
gathering more power, more wealth, more control.

And if you do their bidding,
maybe you will be left alone.

But dare to question.
Dare to disagree.
Dare to say, “This isn’t right.”

And suddenly your livelihood, your standing,
maybe even your place in the community
can feel threatened.

I have tried to hold on tight.
Tried to make sense of the senseless.
Tried to believe that somehow
we would find our way back
to one another,
but I cannot go along with this anymore.
Patience is wearing thin.

I am tired of watching what we have become.
Tired of pretending that cruelty is strength,
that greed is success,
that silence is safety.

Maybe it is time we stop running long enough
to look reality straight in the face.

We were promised a greatness
that somehow seems far away.

And those who once called us friends
now look at us with suspicion,
wondering what happened to the people
they thought they knew.

When did profit become more important
than people?

When did control become more valuable than freedom?

When did we forget that a nation
is not a throne,
but millions of ordinary hearts
trying to find their way
through the darkness?

So come with me.
Just for a little while,
step away from the noise.

Pause the race.

Leave the screens, the arguments,
the endless demands of a world
that insists we must keep moving,
keep digging, keep pillaging,
keep destroying the face of the earth.

Watch the butterfly drift from flower to flower,
never once wondering who deserves the blossom.

Listen to Nature.
She does not shout about power.

She does not demand that one creature
be greater than another.

She simply is.
Honest.
Patient.
Unconcerned with thrones and titles and wealth.

And maybe in her quietness we will remember
something we have forgotten:
We are still human.
That beneath our differences
there is still a heart capable of compassion.

That we can still choose to stop the wheel.

To reach for one another.

To say, Enough.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
But for now, for these few moments,
I will loosen my grip on the fear.

I will breathe.
I will listen.
I will pray,
not for power, not for victory, not for revenge,
but for hope.

For peace.
For the courage to hold on
to what is good
when everything around us seems determined
to pull it away.

And maybe this is how we begin again,
not by conquering one another,
but by remembering how to care.

Michele Luckenbaugh is a patient advocate.