Unarmed Virtue

Extreme stances rule the air
when did digital thunder replace thought?
We glide past living profiles not on our devices,
mute the ache behind their eyes.

Insults echo in digital halls.
Our avatars speak louder than our souls
grieving, boasting, endlessly performing.
We’ve grown fluent in dismissal;
yet ghosts of compassion wander, unseen,
to anti-haunt kindred souls.

Someone still holds the door,
still twinkle-smiles, still lends a hand
from faith and divine habit.

Kindness
walks through the noise
as if the world were still worth saving
though even it now trembles,
unarmed, yet believing.

Artist Statement

Unarmed Virtue is about how kindness survives when outrage feels easier. We live in a time where everyone’s performing, posting, reacting, proving, but compassion still shows up in quiet ways that rarely make noise. The poem wrestles with that tension, how to stay human when everything around us pushes for speed, judgment, and sides. It’s about those small mercies that keep showing up anyway, a smile, a hand held out, a simple act done out of faith or habit. “Unarmed, yet believing” reminds me that grace doesn’t need applause to endure. It just stays.