Today
15 thousand people – and counting –
became so hungry they starved
and died.
Today
a thousand people – and counting –
simply got sick from unclean water
and died.
Today
10 thousand people – and counting –
lost their battle with cancer,
and two thousand people – and counting –
lost their lives to HIV/AIDS
(yes, still, today)
and a thousand people – and counting –
took their own lives
and died
today.
Today
when you read that,
did your eyes blink?
Did you miss a beat?
Did your intake of breath falter,
did your bones get a wee bit heavier?
And did you post it on your facebook
when you read that
today?
Did you feel anything
or do anything,
today,
at all?
All those people – and counting –
that die from preventable causes
every single day,
did their numbers
hit the headlines
today?
Did they even make it
onto any news today
or any day, no?
Maybe because they’re
just numbers…
okay.
Today,
and from the most insane year
that just passed,
when all of us became
more obsessed
with numbers
than ever in our past,
I do recall
that numbers can be
the be-all and end-all.
It just seems
that some numbers
hurt us more than others
and some numbers
don’t hurt
at all.