when I was in high school learning to take the tenets
of journalism like the sacraments of Christ
we learned a wealth of rules;
some matter more than others
but
I must have missed the day
when we must have covered media's right to be
self righteous
and vitriolic;
judgmental and
I'm almost certain that she
forgot to mention
that our words should be barbs driven into the hearts
of women who have shown greater strength than the time tested rules we take as truth,
that truth is always on the side of virile white men.

they have long since claimed the money and power, did the truth slip through our fingers somehow
too?

verisimilitude runs in rivers and sex appeal is trapped in
white middle class women who
don't look anything like the women I know.
hollywood is all out of water, crying out from thirst and the
news editors who decide that
two boys from stubenville have lost more than the
survivor of their rape
haven't held a drop of water to their lips; must be

parched.

they were writers once,
before they were Writers and
I wonder if
they have noticed the difference, if they have seen
the sincerity fading from their words
and they may not use pens anymore but yellow journalism is
alive and well.

verisimilitude runs in rivers but
the rivers have all dried up.