by Barbara Buloff

Kyle Rittenhouse
A perfect nom de plume
A name for a duke or an earl
Or simply the hero of an Austen fabrication
Dashing and
As handsome as
Any childhood notion of a prince must be
Pencil-lined chiseled chin and eyes set as if sculpted like a David in the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence

Kyle Rittenhouse
A face of no definition
Amorphous features with eyes shedding
Tears forced as if in a 3rd grade assembly play
A boy child immersed in the delusion
Of himself being a hero of an American fabrication
Play acting the protector of a war of confusion
While brandishing an AR 15 type of rifle
Destroying three lives
The Clint Eastwood flick
Morphs into the real McCoy
The tragedy unfolding

November 19 2021
As the Pandemic surge continues
This barely formed strange creature
Becomes a folk hero of the day
Acquitted and found not guilty on all counts
His fantasy of himself has become the model
For all lost boys
The law of the land says “white makes right “

As it always has
I weep for my own lost belief in the fabrication
Of what was taught to me of the goodness
Of the land in which I was “lucky“ enough to have been born
Daughter of those who had lived through egregious wrongdoings
Perpetrated by tyrants in the name of honor
I was to never know the heavy hand of authoritarianism
In this land of “fairness and mercy”
I believed in the myths that were taught me…

For months I have lived in a no-person land
Not able to paint
To write a line
Of the every day sadnesses I behold
A trembling anxiety always undergirding my being
Witnessing the devolution of integrity
And the rising up of hollow strong men around a fragile globe
I weep for what seems unstoppable
As the pandemic once again surges
As the lost boys take more of our lives in their white hands

Barbara Buloff, LCSW, SEP, is an emerita member of WTCI's Board of Directors and a faculty member of WTCI’s postgraduate training program. She has been in private practice in NYC since 1978. She utilizes an interpersonal relations approach in her work with individuals, couples and families. She will forever be inspired by the ethos of WTCI.