Yucky days like today....

I don't like days like today.

Where the skies are gray

 the remaining pockets of snow are more black than white

And there's mud and debris everywhere I look

The dogs stink and are covered with mud

Everything looks dead and ugly

Days like today play with my head

Thawing the little naggy things

That I've tried to push away

And tend to pop up on these days

Like the dry grasses peeking through the mud

I think of...

the girl at work who gave the guy a lapdance during a Christmas party

And then claimed sexual harassment the next day

the gangbangers who threw molotov cocktails through my Mama's windows

And the cop who said 'there's nothing we can do'

the school bullies who can do anything they want

because teachers are too afraid of backlashing

the unfairness

Why is it that the bad are rewarded

And that 'they'll get theirs' never really applies

It makes me want to run and hide

From an ugly world

And then I close my eyes

Reminding myself to think in the new way

I open my eyes and look outside

Sure, it's ugly

But like the ugly phase in art or construction

It's a platform to something better

I can almost sense the stirrings beneath the ground

As the plants hit the snooze button on their internal alarms

Above the gray clouds I know the sun shines

And will soon warm my face as I look up and beyond

The ugliness

Because there really are times that there's nothing I can do

And that's when I need to Trust the most

that the good does outweigh the bad

And that for all the ugly people

There are those whose souls warm the planet and bring forth beauty