How can you stand there like you don't even care while bombs fall on people like rain and our country helps cause this pain? How can you cry over World War II movies and turn a blind eye to the repetition of history? You imagine yourself as a hero? If you'd lived during the war you'da been telling me how admirable Hitler is.Your favourite rich asshole did a Nazi salute, you tell me it was a mistake?I hope your rose-tinted glasses blow up in your face like the cybertrucks you so adore.Children live in starvation and terror 'til they're shot in the back or their hearts give out from fear. WCNSF— Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.What horror makes this acronym a neccessity?It's a genocide. Is this what the great nations of the west support? There is no excuse, no history or land claim to explain this disregard of human rights.Take off your blindfold.Look away from X for a goddamn second.What will it take for you to realize you're on the wrong side of history?Preachin' about love and kindness, "God created all man equal"So why aren't they equal in the eyes of someone who claims to be godly? You turn around and talk about a war as if it's anything but a slaughter. "If only HAMAS would give up, Israel could stop bombing hospitals." The hypocrisy makes me sick. Israel ain't so special because they're in your fancy book that genocide is acceptable. Propaganda's sweet poison fills your mind like the snake tricking Adam and Eve. What will it take for you to open your eyes? To think for yourself for a fucking second? Can you look at videos upon videos of death and tell me I'm the one falling for lies? The only propaganda I've fallen for is the value of human life.
My hypertext poem is titled “A letter to my parents”, but really it’s more angled towards my mum. This poem is at least 90% aimed at my dad. It’s what I wish I was brave enough to say whenever he starts going on about Musk and Trump and makes me wonder if I’m misremembering growing up with a father who taught me to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves, or when I see more terrible news online and wish I could share it with my parents without them trying to convince me it’s fake. I started just by writing everything I thought of in a vague, poem-like form and then started reading it aloud and rewriting it as I did so. I found the course video about how to write spoken word surprisingly helpful— at first I was disappointed because it didn’t actually tell me how to start writing the poem, more what to do once I had an idea down. But once I had that idea down it was super useful. I ended up cutting a lot out and it absolutely made my poem better. I tried to pay attention to emotion and rhythm while I was speaking and I think I did a pretty good job. There are also a few metaphors and comparisons in there that I’m pretty proud of. The first is “like the cybertrucks you so adore.” because Dad’s obsessed with Elon’s shitty cars just like he’s obsessed with the man himself, and I hope the sanitized image he’s clinging to falls apart just like the trucks have been. And then “like the snake tricking Adam and Eve” is a biblical reference, which I think is fitting. I wasn’t planning to spend much time on making sure anything rhymed, but I had a few moments where I realized a word would fit perfectly somewhere & I think it turned out great.