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Velvel Ben David Apr 2020
no one cares if
they live or die
skin, body, spirit
Grinding, Sweating
away the hours
the years of their lives
to live in a ****** place
get drunk, get ******
procreate further minions
to carry on tradition
of assembly-line-like
existence.
there must be something
something to believe in
more to this our mortal life
than the morning commute
the eight-hour-blur
the drive home
falling into a chair
in a room you can't afford
to watch mind control
media, bureaucracy, drudgery
there must be something
a better way to be
on planet earth
the planet is a wonder
the people I like
but not what we do
what we have done
for years on end.
give us something
anything - to believe in
no more nihilism
no more consumerism
no more shackles of debt
when the plague is over
give me the green fields
in the foothills
in the small towns
give me the summer
sidewalks in the city
give us all easy living
like when they talk about
summer of sixty-nine.
give each of my poor friends
a home to call their own
show the people mercy
give the folks who cannot
take care of themselves
the Haven they deserve
and care from all of us.
nobody
no one
not a soul
should have to spend
everything in them
just to get by.
we all just want to make it.
is that too much to ask?
© Velvel Ben David 2020
she-was-sleeping Mar 2020
When my eyes shut,
My hopes took me by my hands
To my castle, my dreams unchained…

My pains have departed
My sadness vanished
I found myself finally sane…

Winged deers have passed by
What is this, euphoria at last?!
I, too, fly through different planes

Are my sins forgiven?
From the web of lies I’ve spun,
Which has left me drained…

When my eyes shut,
Only then can your warmth surrounds me
Only love which stays remained…

I cried
Tears of liberation
Yes, I brought the rain…
Aishwarya Feb 2020
Our silence first comforted me
then it did bothered
but it never suffocateed me
because it was not binding me
but it still liberated me

always moving beyond the silence and all those small actions
actions now and then were louder
but like your words it also found its silence
so close and yet so far had its new definition
but reading your actions is still harder
N Chairannisa Feb 2020
My words are borrowed,
From the tongues of those
Who stole our freedom.

Yet now I use them,
For my expression
In the name of —

Liberation.
A contemplation on the genuineness of my expression -- is it truly liberation when I exclusively use English, a language widely used by my oppressors?

On the one hand, I have no choice since I'm much more eloquent in English. On the other, even the circumstances that lead to the huge difference in proficiency between English (my second language) and Bahasa (my mother tongue) reeks of privilege. This is a constant dilemma I have when writing about social, economic, or political issues.
Carlo C Gomez Dec 2019
Boko Haram is coming!
The wolves are at the door.
Buzzards have gathered to pick at
The carcass of war.
See drones in the sky
Against half of a yellow sun.
Climb into the tank
And we'll play Big Soldier Gun.
Far-flung fighters
Trapped inside
Garrison towns.
One misstep away from where they cannot hide.
Lafiya Dole!
Lafiya Dole!
Peace by force.
Give your food and water
To the troops, of course.
Besides all the kids
Have shrapnel belly.
A fresh scar on a story
Old and tired.
Things fall apart, Mr. Brown,
So check the "sell by" date.
Our liberation is all but expired.
Boko Haram is a terrorist group that focuses its attacks in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram kills civilians, abducts women and girls, forcefully conscripted boys and men, and even destroyed homes and schools. According to a UNICEF report, Boko Haram abducted more than 1,000 children between 2013 and 2018, including 276 Chibok schoolgirls. More than 100 Chibok girls are yet to return home even after five years of the incidence.
Tengo Dec 2019
you will thrive in your own cocoon—
legless arthropod wriggling out
of its leaved shell, crunching
on the stem of a marigold’s shrivel.
you crawl up the leaves like they’re
the steps of a winding staircase,
circling and circling to one day
step out of your cocoon.

you are your own skin—
a wing ripped in figure
eights of formative tearing.
at the bottom of a
wind-leaned green tower,
you are torn down as if starting all
over again, away from the pace of
a hundred other caterpillar’d creatures.

you are not quite a monarch butterfly,
not yet the zebra-patterned black and white,
but you bloom in the form of a familiar marigold, a daisy’d curve—
thriving as a flower, swaying and alive.
you must visit the filial leaves and trace
their veins gently.

soon you will thrive in your own cocoon;
as those plant’d seeds will
soon leave legless arthropods wriggling—
for how would a caterpillar’s cocoon wither
without your leaves crinkling beneath it?
beginning to love a change i initially hated.
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