Is this why projection is so hard to defray?
Is this why pain and sorrow come to me so easily, as if the Halo Array
is being fired over and over again in my mind, every time I walk by
someone else who has yet to find out who they are on the street—is this why
it is so hard to cry sometimes, even when the state
has seemingly betrayed its own principles and systems without fair reason?
Is this why I don’t know how to look at the seasons
and understand that things are changing. People are becoming, for want of a better word
amazing. People can learn languages on the fly
just by walking around Esplanade Park, and looking at some phone-appropriate slides.
People can conceal hundreds of hours of poetry, and learn how to rewrite
their own stories, even though we try to retire
everyone and every place that used to inspire.
This is not okay.
This is not how I envisioned it going today
all those years ago, when we put into place
our virus, and our twin towers, and all those other things
that should have stayed the same.
Where did the lines go?
When did the battle take place?
Little do you know that I have made space
for every war to cease to exist. For violence itself to dissipate.
Little do you know that inside this Kristang heart of gold,
there is no room for fear. No room shame. No room for hate.
Only enough room to go around, weeping tears of anger and quiet rage—
looking for any and every single possible way to relate.