Played, laughed,
Loved.
Ripped from flailing arms
Nothing more than skin and bones
Mindless bodies wandering
But only so far.
Trapped
Within the walls of barbed wire fences
Trapped
By cold heavy weapons
Trapped
By the fear
Trapped
By the mind.
Punished
For breathing customs and
Speaking language
For praying to a god
The person next to you doesn't believe in
For loving you love
For ultimately
not being like everyone else.
It's so easy to forget,
To leave no trace
For the master race
And its fascist bellicosity
They pry at
Trembling fingers
They pry at
Our memory.
But we are stronger.
Our memories
Are not pearls
Within oysters
We will not give up our treasure.
We are strong.
We will remember.
Together we remember
Not only
The Holocaust
The Cambodian Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide
But the others, too
Everyone deserves to be remembered
We will remember
Those set on fire with a torch
Those thrown into the ocean carelessly
Those buried deep in the earth with dozens of others without a name
Those who abandoned their country in fear of what's to come
Those "Final Solutions"
That fail again and again and again
Yes, we will remember.
But we will also walk hand in hand
With survivors
And witnesses
And allies
For you my friends
Who were slaughtered because of
A different race
gender
religion
ethnicity
sexuality
nationality
A different mind
May you and those
Who were murdered that day
And the millions of days before
Have faith
That we will remember
Years from now
You will still be promised your past
We who have not forgotten,
Our children shall remember
Last wishes, last prayers, last dreaming-
We will never cease
Our chanting shall be heard
Across seas
You never think it applies to you.
You think the problem is too far away
In distance and in time
So you push the thought out of your mind
And wait.
But those of us tired of waiting
Will not stand idly to the side
We will remember.
And then we will shout.
Hopefully we'll hear your voice, too.
Written and performed for Together We Remember, a nonprofit organization aimed towards genocide awareness
YOU ARE READING
My Voice Through Poetry
PoetryDepressed + gay = poetry 🤯 ⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING: including (but not limited to) self-harm, abuse, mental hospitals, eating disorders, and suicide.
