Ballot in Blood
They shed blood
for a voice in a room where the echoes
drowned them out.
For a name on a slip of paper,
folded and counted like it ever meant the same
as the hands that dropped it.
They fought—
not just for the power to win,
but for the freedom to lose.
For the right to feel the weight of democracy
pressing down on their backs
like a privilege
wrapped in chains.
And here I stand,
paper in hand, ink smudged with history,
casting a vote that vanishes
into the void.
All ballots are counted,
but do they all weigh the same?
Does a ballot, soaked in sacrifice,
carry the same gravity
as one tossed in without a thought?
Does my voice echo
or is it just the wind—
fading before it ever reaches the room?
I am caught between gratitude and grief,
between the freedom they bled for
and the silence I feel.
The fight was for this moment,
yet the conflict remains.
And I wonder—
am I speaking,
or just whispering into history?
Ballot In Blood Continued
They bled for this.
Tore skin, cracked bone,
spilled lifetimes into the dirt
so I could stand in line,
paper in hand,
believing this means something.
They fought for the right
to lose just as much as to win.
To step inside a room
where every face turned against them
but still, they spoke.
Still, they stood.
Still, they wrote their names in ink
like it couldn't be erased.
And yet, here I am,
casting a vote that feels like breath
on a window—
seen for a moment, then gone.
Told my voice counts,
but the air feels too thick to carry it.
Told this is democracy,
but it tastes like watered-down history.
All ballots may drop the same,
but do they land with the same weight?
Do they press against the scales of change
with the blood and bones still in them?
Or do they fade,
washed clean by the hands that never had to fight
to make theirs matter?
I am torn between the honor
and the ache.
Between the privilege
and the powerlessness.
Between knowing they died for this
and feeling like I am screaming
into the silence they left behind.
They gave me a voice.
And I use it.
But does anyone hear?
ballot cast
