'Othering'

Above all, poetry is revolt.

It doesn’t always start with a spark…

Suddenly, like the wrong meat thrown at the right door.

Sometimes, it creeps onto you like fire,

but you don’t feel the heat until you smell the smoke.

Even if you do, the smoke smells the same as the air you breathe in.

So how do you know what is burning,

A corpse or the wedding pyre? Or the firecrackers?

They all smell the same.

But the signs are always, always there.

Are you scared to speak something with an edge?

Then yes, the smoke has reached your window ledge.

Did you pass by the graveyard

and watch people dancing on graves?

Did you question yourself instead,

if by chance, YOU’VE reached the wrong place?

Maybe you’ve made the mistake.

Maybe the graveyard was never there.

Yes, then I would say, it’s a simple case

of what is being made to be forgotten 

from memory and books of history, 

and why.

Does it feel too normal to see,

Evil masked by foolish ecstasy?

Does reason feel like sin?

Then, the fire has reached your skin.

The past is deeper than the cheap lights you hang

to save you from seeing the real darkness.

The siren rings, but only silent minds receive the beep;

Wake up. You are burning in your sleep.