In the memory of today, I am overshadowed by a terror of my dystopian nightmares manifest. I am pulled throughout my day by the sound of helicopters from the national guard and the sirens of police, the ones left amongst animosity to pick up the pieces of rioting violence. I am regretful that these memories, the ones of sleepless nights and nail biting voyeurism, are the ones which have scarred so deep into my brain that they cut deeper than the legitimate and righteous voices of my brothers and sisters calling for the justice of humanity. I regret that I am preoccupied with terror instead of emblazed by injustice. I regret that I am sooner to fall victim to fear in face of a usurped cause than I am to fling myself into the streets to cry rallied screams to the rooftops because on those rooftops, they wait, with bricks and stones and selfish tomes. I am sorry to you, the peaceful, that your message of love and peace and unity has been hijacked by a tumbling wave of opportunism. I am sorry your message still needs saying and that the ones listening have been stuffing up their ears for too many years and decades and centuries now. I want to be the brave citizen of a crumbling nation you deserve to have at your back. And when I do sleep, when I do lull myself to bed at night amidst the chaos of the city In call home wakeful in hollers of sirens and helicopter blades, I hear a chant of:
You must not let this happen
You cannot let this happen
You must stop this now
You need to care
You need to write the history the world will remember.
Photography by Isabella Baxter
