No Helen, of No Troy

By Janhavi Munde

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How to be an academic, an advocate,

A revolutionary, a human, or simply just humane,

When we are tied to choices

 even monarchs couldn’t make it?

When we are so young, only just thrown into the world,

And we are already at war.

For we know that these decisions

Will decide the future which we will own

And it is ours, solely.

The future is the only mine, and only yours, and 

Only ours.

The tragedies we marveled at in our youth

Have come alive, trudging through their graves of fantasy,

And gnaw at us, eat us alive, and fester us so,

That the only other choice is ignorance.

But we have learned, that Ignorance is not bliss,

It is lethal, deadly, dangerous,

 the worst kind of poison.

Because we are not Icarus,

We are not the Olympians in their silence.

We are voices, turned Artemis, turned Athena, turned Hippolyta, turned Utrera.

We are Not you. You, who raised us in a world full of

Sarin in the atmosphere. You, Caesar.

 

And we must adapt, and you have forced our hand, and turned us, Brutus,

So Brutus we will be.

We wear his robe, we stab with his sword, into your back, into your back, into your back,

Twisting, tears in our eyes, Wretched laughs tearing their way out of our throats,

 

Shouting, Shouting, Crying: “Liberation!”, and “Freedom is Ours!”.

And so it will stain us, taint our conscience,

And stay with us forever.

 

 “Et Tu?” You ask,

 

Yes. Us too. Us only. Us ultimately.

I am not the face of this war.

My fallen, brothers, sisters, 

Those who have it worlds worse than me.

Are perhaps, Those whom you muted.

And they, who have no voice,

 they who bear only their heads high.

So if I must speak for them, I will,

I will shout, cry, yell, scream until mine is gone as well,

And another takes my place.

 

We can only hope to be better than you.

Only hope that the murder of our conscience,

Saved the next from that fate.

We hope that they will have Rome, Completely.

We can only fight for it.

In name of No Helen, of No Troy.

By Janhavi Munde

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