When Everyone is Broken
Who's going to fix us?
Who’s going to fix us when everyone is broken?
Look at the poet, struggling through the fetid swamp.
See the painter, his brushes cracked in half.
The bard can’t find the songs in her mind anymore.
The memory banks are being erased.
The liars are self-aggrandizing.
The fascist monsters in the streets stealing humans.
The march is on to imprison us all.
Who’s going to fix us when everyone is broken?
Where are the healers not filling the gap?
All overwhelmed with grim foreboding.
This has all been seen before.
Who’s going to fix us when everyone is broken?
Fear, rage, sorrow, death.
Soon neighbor will rat out neighbor.
Children accuse parents of treason.
Students pointing at teacher’s politics.
Who is going to fix us when everything is broken?
The law is reliable only for the powerful rich.
The churches too hypocritical.
There’s a noxious odor in the air.
This has all been seen before.
Not so very long ago - a blink of the Universal eye.
It always ends in death and destruction.
Living skeletons soon to be passed.
Who is going to fix us when everyone is broken?
Who is going to fix the children?
They’ll think this is the natural way:
to hate the other,
to kill the different; to clear the way.
Who is going to fix us when everyone is broken?
Who is going to fix us when everything is broken?
©Ellen Pepper 2026