In the shade of what’s good and right slain by the beast, I have learned to crawl.
My books, they’ve been snatched from my muddied palms of a child,
and they claim it’s for the better.
I only hear what they want me to hear
an earplug sweeping away the sound,
a film reel, claws scratching down the screen,
I only see what they want me to see.
I met a girl called propaganda
And she stole my diaries and named them enemy.
She demolished the laws of speech and press,
she took the world as we knew it.
And she destroyed it all:
watched us burn up in flames,
she took our corpses and hung them like ornaments,
she became the embodiment of fear and she seeped into our souls.
She danced with war and wounds
but disguised herself as “for the better.”
She took our puppet strings and pulled
until the words that flowed from our lips were more hers than ours.
She lives now
perhaps stronger than ever.
And she bleeds into our beings
Not just our shadows
Always unreceptive.
Always inconspicuous.
Always a daydream,
Never the nightmare she should be labeled.
She’s become the beast
and we,
We have become
the prey.
