It is dangerous to stray
far from my own skin,
world wrapped tight like bandages,
smothering.  Still, I read newspapers:

Stories of women scalding the devil
out of children in anonymous bathrooms,
bodies left torn
and empty in ditches,  fields,
like so muchgarbage;
sometimes months
or even years
before discovery.

The radio screams bloody murder
as I read, so I turn to the classical station
where smoothvoiced men
serve atrocity gently;
Tianamen square
sandwiched between Teleman
and Ravel.

I can change the station,
close the page,
avert my eyes.

Across the world a girl screams
because she was in the wrong place,
an unfortunate bystander,
mistaken for a dissident;
doused in gasoline and burned.

I learn this
on 60 minutes
in 20 minutes
& I cry with her,
as she tells her story again,
but tomorrow I will forget–

her burning story,
horror-tale,
her pain real as burned skin
but I will forget

because my throat is not raw
from breathing flame.

It is dangerous to see so much,
to be so open, to die slowly
with each slow death.

The words/images
come fast and sharp as stones thrown;
but, I can escape
the bruises my skin carries.

Every day, as I read
or listen
I become the burned one.

I am the ruined child
whose eyes accuse, 
or the man who cannot stand
because his feet are rags worn pliant, bones shattered
from so many beatings.

But, unlike them, 
I can step away from the nightmare, 
change the station, 
turn the page.