595. The Soundless

Speech shouldn’t be a gun to the head.

Enforced conformity or social death.

For does not a life still exist,

As long as there is breath?

Silence is not insignificance,

Nor essentiality: of a word;

And a voice is no guarantee,

Of ever being heard.

K. Aldaya, 11/6/22

GIF 1: Actress Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven from Stranger Things; https://aminoapps.com/c/stranger-things/page/user/eleven/YjW6_VJPtWf6Q5PnldWQPMx7xEDERlj8dv7SR

GIF 2: Actress Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven from Stranger Things; https://aminoapps.com/c/stranger-things/page/blog/eleven/V0EL_2Wvi7u73BQNXQ2o4NYVlZ7ZDx1l12

542. Collective Torment

Have you not yet heard?

There are no more exceptions.

There is only the rule.

A world of false expectations,

Where the discerning are labeled: ‘fool’,

And inquiry…Absurd!

Have you really not seen?

There are no individuals.

There are only collectives…

Born of social, hierarchical rules,

Where all allegedly ‘real’ victim-hood lives,

Above the law,…blood-soaked, yet clean…

…As individual victims mount.

K. Aldaya, 5/23/21

Picture: Photo of August Landmesser, 1936; https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/non-conformity/refusal-to-salute/