Resolutions

Dear Asian Youth,

A new year: a time for new beginnings, hopes, and change

A time for resolutions, improvements, and gains.

But changing to be a better you?

For what? For who? Why? How? What must ensue?

After a year like this year, I question the reason:

Why the new year must be the season

For change, improvement, and a new fixation?

Let’s scroll back a year, and take a moment to reflect,

On how change itself sometimes isn't direct.

We started the year on fire; climate change was to blame.

As lands grew dryer and dryer, animals' homes were in flames.

An election tore our nation apart:

Spread a message to divide and hate; it's my side versus yours.

A virus swept the world, closing down nations.

Yet countries in the west decided it was better to name-call and debate.

China-Virus and Kung-Flu, they said, while their people died in the thousands,

While graphs showed the death toll climbing like a mountain.

We saw our cities lit aflame as police pillaged, murdered, and killed,

With titles like “peace officer” and “peacekeeper” written on guns and truck grills.

The irony is how our society turned a blind eye,

To decades of collusion and corruption, while black people died.

Decades of violence, fearmongering, division, and hate,

Decades of foreign meddling, endless wars, and divisive debate.

Those in power squabble and fight,

The poor, the sick, the needy die left and right.