Uprising

Don’t be fooled, I’m not a renegade poet. But
it must be bad, for here I am—fury trapped in
bones / teeth-gnashing / eye spilling–a rebellion
stuck in the throat. My people, breathless. My
homeland, a funeral pyre. If we must die, let us
go out in a blaze, let us turn pain into poetry and
poetry into protest. Rise against our shame, our
failures, take them apart, piece by piece, and
transform into the eye of a storm. Let us re-write
this landscape, spit out a new language so we can
purge our country of mindless abuse. Drag our
names to the ground, let this soil blacken with bad
blood, so the world may not forget what we felt—
on each individual shoulder, the weight
of an entire nation, collapsing in on itself.

Author’s Request: This is a prominent organization raising funds for various needs related to the COVID-19 situation in India: https://covid.giveindia.org/

They accept international donations.