The armor we wear

Cicadas' and crickets' songs permeate a temperate August early afternoon.
A sleepy Saturday in late summer.
Another stolen car has ended up stripped to nothing in the overgrowth across the street.
The unrelated smell of fresh arson still lingers over tall waving grasses.

As a bumblebee sleeps in a chicory flower someone's head is in their hands while gray and white clouds roll slowly across a blue sky.

The neighbor's dogs who live in cages are barking and crying.
I'm keeping calm by shifting my attention to the grove and bugs and plants.
There's a block party today a couple streets down.
We'll all put on our best faces and try not to dwell in disappointment.
Another house torched though...
Uneasiness bubbles below the surface of everything.
Maybe that's why people are drinking out of paper bags at the crack of noon.
You can never get ahead so you might as well slow way down...
get numb...
become immune.
That's life around here.
No one was hurt so praise God for that right?
We've got each other and we woke up this morning so praise God?

The paint peeling in my house, the gutted kitchen, the worn floors...
leave a feeling of brokenness.
It matches everything around here.
I should be getting ready to leave soon.
Guess it's time to put on my armor.