WE ARE HUMANS - YI LIN
YI LIN
To love
And be loved,
Is the remedy to the ills that plague our world,
Our souls.
It is the invisible thread that mends our woes,
That connects us to one another
And even our own sense of self.
We cry out in vain when such thread is cut short
We cry out in vain,
Because in the depths of our hearts,
We want to feel loved amongst our disparities
We want to feel accepted amongst our differences in values and beliefs.
We hold tightly onto those brief moments of happiness
And peace.
Savoring and preserving every moment of it
Because lingering in the back of our minds
Exists a constant fear
That it won’t last for long.
We know such preservation will eventually expire
Rotten,
And dissipate over time
Until nothing remains but the corpse of that memory
Hollow, broken, and abandoned.
This isn’t the truth for all of mankind
But it is the reality that some live in.
It was for the loving mother
That devoted her entire lifetime to nurturing her child
From watching her child take his first baby steps
To the first time he uttered the words of, “I love you mommy”
These were precious times of hopes and dreams,
Where the stars cast its light through the perpetual darkness of the night
This undefeatable joy
Where by day,
The first breaths of morning air brings renewal
A new day for endless possibilities
A step closer to fulfilling the child’s aspirations
A step closer,
To his future.
Unfortunately,
The child never woke up to the light
Skies of charcoal color rains down ashes of the child’s hopes
The wild winds howling violently, as it carries the voices of the dead
Spreading darkness and pain
Destroying and shattering the safe haven they once lived in.
The mother cries in agony, but no one hears her hurting heart
In the moment, she holds her son tightly against her chest
Her hands and clothing
Soaked and stained in her son’s blood
The end to his life was the end to hers.
The man who ran his own meat market business
Lived this harsh reality
When he lost his business
And eventually, his home
To selfish and greedy men
Who possessed hearts as cold as the meat the man once sold
Their dark eyes with a tint of silver glistened
Hungry for more
And so they hunted like a wolf pack and took
Collecting every trace of valuables and treasures
Depriving more men of happiness and life.
More men will lose their homes
Their cultural roots and history
Most importantly, their identity
And worst of all,
Their cries won’t reach hearts from a thousand miles.
Then there’s the young boy
Who is consistently beaten by his peers
Until he’s left in heart aching tears
And in every step he takes
There is a constant fear penetrating within his bones
But all he wants
Is to live freely and in peace
And love not by gender
But by heart.
These people once had dreams
These people once knew what love was
These people once had homes
And they knew, themselves.
But what happened?
Did we forget that we are all humans?
Of flesh and bones
And aren’t we gifted with the ability to feel and reason?
Each of us, possesses a heart and mind
Every one of us is very different, but yet, similar
Our fates are many
But together, we are one
Because at the core of our lives,
We all know what despair and pain feels like
We all know what happiness and love feels like.
The mother loves her son like any other mother
The son had dreams and hopes for his future, like many of us
The man worked toward building his dreams like any other hard working individual
The young boy just wants to love and feel loved.
Afterall, aren’t we just like the mother, the man, and the young boy?
We love,
We dream,
We hope.
But the barriers that we create and seclude ourselves in
And the false perceptions we follow
Is what destroys us.
Our humanity.
We all harvest different values and beliefs
We all have different perspectives of the world
But when the sun comes down,
And the skies are painted with hues of red, yellows, and oranges
At the very last breath of the day,
We all share and work toward a common goal
Of preserving peace
And feeling unconditionally loved
Accepted.
Let us rejoice not in fear
But out of love
Let us feel and live the full colors of life
Let us come hand and hand
Heart and heart
To creating more of those temporary moments of happiness
And one day,
Let us wake up to a world
A reality
Where we no longer have to fear
What tomorrow will bring
Because the tomorrow
We will live
Is a world, where we are able to travel freely, like birds gliding smoothly through the skies.
It is a world of love
And peace.
Let us live and cherish more of those moments.
And make the temporary become permanent.
After all, we are all humans.
##
3