This is not a poem
and I am not a poet
when I can’t find eloquent words to describe
that more blacks are incarcerated in America right now
than in apartheid South Africa
when beautiful words fail me and I can’t express
the worries of the deprived through the complexity of language
that our key policy makers and leading civil servants
have never had a job outside of politics
that sixty percent of Jews identify as atheists since the holocaust
no, I am not a poet
when I can’t find crafty words to illustrate the fact
that before 2008 Mandela had been on America’s list
of most dangerous terrorists for more than half a century
that
massacres and genocides and partitions and conflicts
give way to erratic sensationalizing where no one can hear the cries
that when the ending is unsatisfactory
not many stick around to watch
some wax lyrical about the tragedy and the shock
about something tangible lost by something intangible
the pleasures of life lost to the end of a sharp knife
the joy of living lost in a bullet wound
but the real comedy is how some fail to acknowledge it at all
chaos befallen on them who dared to utter a syllable
lest someone knows it was their fault
the plot twist is that there is no plot twist
and I wish there was some metaphor
to lower you into this grief
but that is why this is not a poem
and I am not a poet
but it’s fair to say
the heart’s crafted to evermore persist
a rugged pioneer of time, relentless optimist
that sometimes it’s an act of bravery even to exist
but you see
I’ve crossed lines, not followed traditional poetic form
failed to construct elaborate metaphors to explain
that immigration isn’t a choice
that a person probably has more Muslim blood
than the people in the mosque they conspire to blast
never is survival available to all those who deserve it
and so it goes
how do I explain all this and still retain artistic worth?
the wanderers, the grievers- here they are doomed to roam
hatred boils in them and sears the world like a blazing scar
and humanity falls when tyrants are hailed
but how can one be falling, if flying feels the same?
how does man forgive himself
for all the things he did not become?
a refugee buried within suffering
for a war he cannot comprehend
but it’s all done now
anger surrounds us
hate courses through us
yet this hate is unaware
of the humanity she births into us
we are made of all the things that break us
just to keep us alive
maybe I should’ve just said that, but I didn’t
because
this is not a poem
and I am not a poet
of things that seem out of place in today’s world
like writing a poem which isn’t one
Aarushi Bhardwaj is a school student from India and has been previously published in Teen Ink Magazine and The Hindustan Times.
Recent Comments