Ronald J. Pelias
When the Struggle Stops
You throw your hands up as if there’s nothing
you can do. You accept the given order.
You refuse to discuss politics. You
doubt if there’s any truth to the lies you
hear, if you should trust the never-ending
news. You wonder if all politicians
are morally corrupt, if both parties
are the same. You don’t vote. You are afraid
of what comes next, but fall into consent,
bury yourself in dead silence, protect
what you have. When you bite your tongue, it no
longer bleeds. Here, you suffer from comfort.
Ronald J. Pelias‘ most recent books, Performance: An Alphabet of Performative Writing (Left Coast Press/Routledge), If the Truth Be Told (Sense Publications), and Writing Performance, Identity, and Everyday Life (Routledge), call upon the poetic as a research strategy. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Midwest Poetry Review, Coal City Review, Poetry East, and Negative Capability.
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