For when you die, the world cries with you
Sends love to your beloved,
Prayers, together, a community come through.
Your name was known,
The privilege you had, born
Out of sweat and blood perhaps, or not.
A name not so easily forgotten,
Or overlooked,
A name more than a pile of bones
Even in death.
You see I have a name too,
but no one knows it.
I'm another other,
Far from being worth it.
An unknown faceless number, a statistic
Or a photograph to champion
The world’s hues and cries for outrage -
At the fate of my abstract end.
A pawn in the revolution,
Forgotten like the winds of time,
As they come and go,
Normalised, not even an anomaly,
As if my death wasn't an issue to be raised.
But who decides?
You see I'm not afraid of being forgotten,
Or being buried under your fame,
I don't envy you it's just
I have nothing to my name
My family grieves alone.
You say you feel it personally
'This one, it really hit me hard'
'We're a community, you gotta reach out'
In episodes of the known,
not with pain any less,
But somehow sweeping under the carpet
A throng of souls, young and old,
Like the endless scattered leaves of a tree that bears few fruits,
Just one of many,
Just another other.
Your name carries privilege,
And pray I don't ask you to be guilty as charged,
What scares me is the mirage of care
And solidarity,
Please, spare me the trouble.
I don't ask for fame
Or memoirs in my name,
I just wish to be significant,
At least in your memory
At least in my death.
Just an honest appeal for
When you meet another person,
Camouflaged in rhetoric
About to be sacrificed at the altar for,
Any war that decides what is fair,
Ask them their name.
If you react before you listen, if you're defensive without cause, if you hinder movements that have nothing to do with you, that at best demand your support, you are the problem.
The internet is a dark and sordid place. We consume media by the million, not stopping for a second to think, or let it digest. My brain has started to feel like a sponge, with the only letting go happening when I sleep - perhaps also in oblivion because I don't remember my dreams.
Just like feeds are made of cluttered thoughts and ideas, repetitive yet different, emotional or ridiculous, my psyche has descended into a depth I have somehow managed to lock myself out of.
It's like a wormhole, where existence is as real as anything else, or not. The notions of space and time, as we spend endless hours stuck in the walls of our safe and secure homes, warped.
I don't know how to make it stop, the internet is like those voices in your head like they show in movies, that just don't stop.
Why is it so hard to live with it, so hard to ask for it, so complicated to expect it, and almost impossible to look for it.
Millennials have learned how to live a life for the gram, for the screen. We've accepted the individual way of life, as the forefront, as we embrace liberal ideas and uphold rights and support mental health. In all this, how did we manage to skip the essence of emotion? How did we end up so lonely? Why are we so afraid of speaking out?
If you want to talk, about anything at all, my inbox is open. I don't know how to make the world a better place, but I can do my bit in pushing someone to cry out for help, for love for validation, for comfort, without worrying about the pressure of self love and contentment.