Rage in the Mirror

On the heels of Operation Low Voltage, a staggering betrayal of trust by the U.S. government, the film One Battle After Another was released. Watching it, I felt the deep frustration that drives people toward rebellion, sometimes even violence. I understand that primal reaction: the urge to lash out when you’ve marched, voted, donated, and are still being ignored.

The Rage in the Mirror is my attempt to hold space for that anger. To name the despair many of us feel as liberal progressives, especially as we’re labeled violent and dangerous, while the most vicious rhetoric and violent acts have long come from the other side.

And yet, who stormed the Capitol, chanting “Hang Mike Pence”? Who marched in Charlottesville with torches and hate, leading to the death of a young woman who stood for peace? It wasn’t the liberal progressives, that I know.

I don’t have the answers. But I know this: violence doesn’t solve anything. It breeds more violence. Revenge corrodes the soul, leaving us hollow and hateful. That’s not the world I want to live in. And it’s not the world I want to help create.

Verse
Angst and anger normalized
Just going through the motions
Our souls are crushed we’re in despair
Society beyond repair
We go to work, we go to school
Our thoughts are full of tension
And even when we’re safe at home
We still hold fast to apprehension

Chorus
Should we rise in anger
And deal a vicious blow
We’re already being blamed
For violence we did not show
We’ve never called for bloodshed
Though we protest, we’re not heard
We don’t want to deal in force
Or make death our final word

Verse
Bad news piles on top of bad
Until our backs are broken
We stand upon the edge of madness
Not feeling the erosion
We wake up from our nightmares
Our fears stay by our side
And when we say it can’t get worse
We’ve told ourselves a lie

Bridge
The workers were invited
And in good faith they came
But soon they were deported
Sent from our shores in chains
A friend of mine, not native born
But here on legal ground
She left for fear that she’d be next
For cruelty knows no bounds

Outro
When protests feel useless
Is silence a sin?
Is violence the answer
In a war we cannot win?